Do You Reconcile Your Checking Account?

[dex]

I use the bank's on line check register.
It is great for computing cash flow needs and budgeting.

 

[Nords]

DD (away at college) now has two more overdrafts. Total overdraft fees since last May: $231.
I can't get her to reconcile her account, and apparently she doesn't even keep note of the balance.
I was curious as to how many of you regularly reconcile.

Bummer. Hopefully this is a problem in her solo account and not your family's joint account. Because it's not your problem anymore!

No doubt she'll see the results of the poll and immediately change her ways. Yup. Any second now.

As a nuclear engineer, I'd balance our checking account daily if our credit union could produce the statements that fast.

 

[bpp]

I don't use a checking account, but I do "reconcile" (log all transactions to a budgeting spreadsheet) my savings account about once a month.

 

[audreyh1]

Not only do I reconcile my checking account, but I reconcile ALL my accounts - that includes our credit card accounts, our IRAs, our mutual fund and brokerage accounts, even our treasury direct accounts (IBonds) on occasion to keep track of the interest accumulating there.

Thanks goodness for Quicken. It's easy (except for the credit card accounts where I manual go through and check off each receipt)

Only once found a bank error. I occasionally (rarely) find a credit card charge in error. Once I found that I wasn't credited for a mutual fund distribution.

Audrey

 

[dmpi]

DW set up some speadsheets and balances checking once a month. 

 

[TromboneAl]

doesn't the bank offer your DD overdraft protection

There was some reason she didn't use that -- maybe because she doesn't have a credit card or because it was too expensive. I don't remember.

Might suggest to DD that she pay the overdraft fees next time.

She does pay them all. The only reason I know about them is that she mistakenly gave our address as her permanent address, so the notices come here.

In a sense, though, any dollar that she spends or wastes is an additional dollar that I have to spend on her college.

----------------

I have caught numerous mistakes of mine over the years by reconciling. Once I got Quicken's autoreconcile working it has been almost totally painless.

 

[Spanky]

Do people still write checks? It's a rare occassion for me. Credit cards, online bill pay, and cash take care of 95% of my transactions.

Yes. I am tired of paying $0.39 postage, especially for small bills. I just paid a bill of $.32.

 

[ladelfina]

Used to always reconcile.. now I only track the $ investments and leave the € bank account be since my Quicken won't handle both at once (excuse for laziness)? I track general spending levels only by the amount of $ => € each year.

I jumped all over the Quicken/bank transaction downloads until I learned it was costing me $8.95/mo (something my bank didn't tell me at the outset, nor was it mentioned on their web site). Sayonara!

For small recurring bills, like our water bills, I would often write a bigger check and let them maintain the balance until it ran down. What I lost in interest on $50 was made up in 6 months of not having to write tiny checks and pay postage.

 

[audreyh1]

I jumped all over the Quicken/bank transaction downloads until I learned it was costing me $8.95/mo (something my bank didn't tell me at the outset, nor was it mentioned on their web site). Sayonara!

WHAAAaaaat! Highway robbery! Ouch. I guess it's because your bank is not US-based?

I download transactions from many different institutions - never have been charged for it.

Audrey

 

[ladelfina]

Nope. US bank (Citizens in the NE). Signed up on-line for Quicken downloads but no mention of the fee anywhere, and I looked pretty hard. When I noticed the charges a couple months later I e-mailed and was told I had to take care of it over the phone. I phoned, canceled the service*, and got my fees back. They credited 2 months of fees, all smiles, no problem, all taken care of.

*Then, the next 2 months, there the fees were back again! I'd dumped the connection info from Quicken and hadn't accessed the account (which anyway has very few transactions -- I keep it for emergency ATM/debits and for paying off US cc bills). Another call to complain. This time they WOULD NOT refund the fees a second time even though I hadn't downloaded any xactions in the interim.. AND they said I had to send a signed letter in order to cancel the service (something they conveniently DID NOT tell me during the 1st phone call or in the e-mail). Bastards!

 

[astromeria]

Yikes! (But we really want to know what you called them in Italian )

 

[BUM]

OLD SCHOOL...

DW reconciles each checking account manually every month. She shows me bank errors ocassionally. I input the data into my program. If my balance doesnt agree with DW usually its my error.

OLD TRICK...
If you can't or won't do the arithmetic, keep 2 checkbooks. Use one for odd numbered months and the other for even months. When the statement arrives there should seldom, if ever be an outstanding check.

High schools don't teach kids these basic skills.

 

[SteveR]

I do most of my banking on line but still write several checks a month. I do reconcile my account(s) every couple of months both in Money and in the check book registers.

Never found a bank error in 35+ years of having checking accounts. I do it for me; not because I don't trust the bank. Since I enter all my transactions in my Money program it helps me make sure everything is in there if I force myself to balance the accounts. Also, DW has her own checkbook so I need to know what she spends and make sure we don't run out of money .

The other accounts are also balanced each month or two just to keep me up to date on the activities and to see if I need to move anything around. With over 4 checking accounts to keep track of I feel the need to balance periodically.

My son, who is still in college, has his own accounts. All I do is electronically transfer $$ periodically when he requests it. I don't see his checks and if he bounces a check it is his problem to deal with. Since he has two jobs and is going to school he is pretty much on his own anyway. I just help out with the tuition and books at this point.

 

[saluki9]

I do mine DAILY!

I bank with Citibank which sends the daily transactions through quicken

takes me about 30 seconds a day to do my checking and credit cards

 

[TromboneAl]

Do people still write checks?

I have all monthly expenses (phone, elec, etc) go to my credit card. So every month I have two things to pay: credit card and monthly college tuition payment.

I'd been doing this by ETFing the money from Vanguard to checking, then BillPaying the amounts from checking (online payment). But the transfers always favor the bank (transfer in takes 2 day, transfer out occurs immediately) and with leaving margins of error, I end up losing float each month. So now, I pay those two things with money market checks. I figure I save $25-$50 per year.

 

[AltaRed]

I reconcile each account each month via Quicken. Occassionally picks up the odd entry error on my part. All bills paid either online (e.g. annual ones), or debited automatically from bank account.

Only write a cheque for one offs, such as a specific charitable cause, and home repairs, e.g. plumber, arborist.

 

[renferme]

For my account : actually I don't, but I review daily online.
For my and wife's joint account: she does it.
.

 

[LOL!]

I've been overdrawn on my checking account a couple of times, but I have never had to pay any fees. The most recent was when a 6-figure bank deposit was actually subtracted from the account by the bank. The subtraction blew away all the funds in the account, all the outstanding checks that kept coming in, all the online bill pays that were ongoing while the bank tried for 3 weeks to correct the error.

If the bank can't keep track of my money, why should I?

 

[SecondCor521]

A long time ago I worked in the main computer operations area of a moderately sized regional bank. I saw some fun things, including (1) when they ran the "pay the monthly mortgage autopayment" program twice and overdrew thousands of customers' checking accounts, and (2) when someone made a data entry error and a deposit of $3.75 turned into a deposit of $3,750,000,000 and they had to submit a special request to get it fixed because that particular field wasn't user-editable by the person who made the initial entry.

In those two cases, the bank managed to fix it without telling the affected customers or having them catch on. I'm sure this kind of thing still happens from time to time.

2Cor521

 

[MJ]

I have a multi sheet spreadsheet that I maintain daily to keep track of all my expenses and any debits or credits to my various banking accounts. It takes 5 to 10 minutes a day to make the entries. I don't mind it at all.

 

[JohnP]

Like Vagabond and others here I track income and expenses almost daily through Quicken - Works for me!

JohnP

 

[Mary E.]

We don't do the reconcillation either. Use on-line banking to monitor account, then enter info into financial software for reports, etc.

We have had only one bank error many years ago (before AMT, etc.) , but it was a duzzie -
We sent in our mortgage payment, the receiving bank processed the check for nearly $6,000 more -- they slipped in another digit in the amount!! When I started getting bounced check notices, I called the bank, and they assured me they were right and I was wrong. I spent that night balancing my account back for a couple of years and came within about 20 dollars of the bank balance before the error. I went down to the bank the next day and they showed me their printout. I immediately spotted the error and told the manager I had never written a check for that large amount. She said, and I quote, "Oh yes you did, we have it right here." She went to the back to retrieve the check and came back red faced. Took a few weeks to get it all straightened out and everyone paid. Only one merchant was really ugly to me, and I put him on the phone with the manager and walked out.

Bank errors are rare, thank goodness!!

 

[BUM]

If the bank can't keep track of my money, why should I?

Now THAT is LOL... should be on Funny Joke Thursday....or maybe Cute Quip Wednesday?

 

[jazz4cash]

DD (away at college) now has two more overdrafts.  Total overdraft fees since last May: $231.

I can't get her to reconcile her account, and apparently she doesn't even keep note of the balance. 

I was curious as to how many of you regularly reconcile.

WOW!! I never knew if you reconcile your account the bank would not charge you overdraft fees! Where was I when they explained that? I always thought they would stick you with fees whether you reconciled or not if you did not have enough cash in the account to cover the debits comming in.

So what I do is sign up for overdraft protection linked to a credit card or savings account with about $300 in it. The most it costs me is a $10 cash advance fee (plus interest charges).

I also gave up reconciling a LONG LONG time ago and thanks to you, I no longer feel guilty about it!! I do look through the account online and glance at the paper statements to make sure I recognize each transaction.

 

[yakers]

For those of you who do not reconcile your checking periodically, how do you do your taxes? With Quicken & TurboTax it is pretty easy but everything needs to be entered. Right now I just do a "report" from Quicken for the year and also get one from my credit card so I look in those places for all my expenses.