Do you balance your checkbook?

I'm curious: What errors (by the bank or credit card company) have folks found?
Nothing small but I did find a fairly large error that was never resolved.

A year and a half ago I made a mobile deposit of a $5000something check sent for reimbursement from a club I happen to be the treasurer of, so I sent the check too, using the bank's online check writing service. All very legit and I always inform another board member who I've asked to oversee the finances.

90 days later that person asked me about a large deposit I apparently made to the club account. Nope, hadn't done that, but I'd look into it. Realized it was the same amount of the check I'd deposited into my own account. Since I'd used their service they had my name on the original check and on the returned deposit. I checked, and made sure the deposit actually made my account. It did. I called the club's bank, and they said the check was never deposited. I assured them it did, and they assured me it didn't. So I hung up, and figured either it would be taken out of my account or the club's account when the error was found.

It never happened. I advised the board that our account had an extra $5400 in it with the explanation, and that we shouldn't consider it ours for at least ample time. Last month, 18 months after the returned deposit, I advised them that we might as well consider it ours.

Real life "Bank error in your favor" Monopoly card played. If anyone ever doubted my integrity with the club finances I can point them to this and how easily I could've said, oh yeah, my mobile deposit failed, I'll send me a new one and I'd have gotten the extra $5400, not the club.

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To the original question, yes, I balance since I keep use a spreadsheet as my check register and it's pretty quick and easy.
 
I still keep a paper checkbook registry as I have since I first opened the checking account back in 1983. However, 2 big things have happened over the last 41 years to make balancing that registry every month less important after I receive my monthly account statement.

The first is when I bought my first PC back in 1995 and created a spreadsheet to mimic the paper registry. In fact, it's an expanded registry which not only categorizes my cash inflows and outflows (like Quicken, perhaps), but also links to a skeleton version of my income tax forms. Very often I would enter a transaction into the spreadsheet but forget right away to enter it into the paper registry which became relegated to a back-up. Most months I could find the statement period's ending balance in both the registry and spreadsheet, making the balancing procedure very easy.

The second is when I added online banking back in 2014. This allowed me to monitor my banking activity whenever I felt like it. I could then match the account activity in the online banking to the spreadsheet, an easier task than finding the checkbook and registry itself as I wrote fewer and fewer checks (now down to around 10 per year).

I use the statement balance as a monthly checkpoint to see, along with the rest of my investment portfolio, my total portfolio's value.
 
We now write on average 2 checks a month. With that low volume we do not use the paper check register anymore. The checks just get entered into quicken and I balance it monthly there. Other than the checks, the activity on the checking account occurs the 3nd or 3rd business day of the month, when our bill are paid electronically after my pension is deposited.

Since we know what the balance will be after those bills are paid when we schedule them, we know in advance if we need to move more cash into the checking account to cover them.
 
I don't remember when I used my checkbook. Maybe a few years ago? All paperless now, and I used Quicken to reconcile.
 
I keep track of my checking account, but don't balance it with the register that comes with my paper checks. I probably stopped doing that in the late 1990s.

Instead, I made up an Excel spreadsheet, that basically looks like a monthly calendar, and put my entries in there. It's just gotten to the point I can type much more quickly than I can write, so it's easier for me. It's set up so that each day has five rows in it. Four rows for entries, and then the row on the bottom where it adds it all up. When the situation arises that I have more than four things post in a single day, I fudge it a bit, and put the extra entries either on the previous day, or the following.

I compare my spreadsheet to what it shows online, and after 25+ years, somehow it did get off, slightly. My spreadsheet shows around $2.00 less than what the statements show. I never did bother to try and track down that discrepancy.
 
.... I'm exercising the left side of my brain to carry the two and borrow the one--when else am I going to add and subtract on a regular basis? ...
A bit of thread drift, but I do subtraction differently from everyone else I know. My mother taught me to add and subtract before I went to school, and I never changed to the borrow and carry method. Instead, I start on the right and add either 1 or 0 to the bottom line in the next place to the left as I go.

So, for example, it I have to subtract 878 from 1346, I say to myself "6 minus 8 is 8, 4 minus 8 is 6, 3 minus 9 is 4 and 1 minus 1 is 0. So the answer is 0468 or 468. It's weird, but it has always worked.
 
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Regarding errors: I try to balance to the penny, but sometimes off a few cents, sometime a couple dollars. Usually ends up to be my error.
One time, years ago, I could not find the error. It was about $50, bank had more than I. I even took my register and two months worth of statements to the bank, (as I had balanced to the penny the month before) and had one of the workers go through it with me (this was a long time ago when on a first name basis with folks in the bank!). Even she was at a loss and could not figure it out!! She got so involved, she went line by line with her calculator, lol. Luckily, the bank showed more than I did, she just said to take the banks balance and move on. I did and balanced the next month.
Somewhere, somehow, I got money from the bank.
I had that happen once to me. My bank account showed $36 and some change more than my record-keeping showed. This was before the Internet was available in my area, so I couldn't look up stuff online. The teller at the bank found an electronic deposit (using my debit card number) for just over $36. Once I got home, I went back over my checkbook records and I found that I had spent that same amount three months prior at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL on a sweatshirt and other souvenirs. Around the same time, the teller called the number she found which was associated with the company that made the deposit into my account. Apparently, Visa™ was having a promotion where if you used a Visa (credit or debit) card to make a purchase, you were entered into a promotion where, if they drew your name, your purchase was free. Apparently I was a winner but they never notified me. Made me wish I had bought more souvenirs that day! I paid for my entrance as a separate transaction but that one wasn't a winner.

So that's how I got money from Visa.
 
Have never balanced cheque book. I still have all my Dad's old ledgers and tax returns and am amazed when I look at them out of nostalgia or show my adult kids. He passed in 2002 but was in finance so I guess figures. Still have the bills for cars he bought in the 60s.
 
Ugh...:blush:...at least once a week. But there is a very good reason for that insanity. I use the Quicken "One Step Update" for moving money around for short sell investments/transactions and the checkbook transactions are also downloaded. So, it is a quick one-click to the checking account to accept and verify things to get rid of the Quicken transaction flag notification.
 
I'm curious: What errors (by the bank or credit card company) have folks found?
None by the cc companies, but decades ago I found two 1 cent errors by the credit union a couple of years apart. One was in my favor and one was in the credit union's favor so they balanced out. I didn't bother to report either one, they were apparently keystroke or OCR reading errors.

I studiously balance all accounts every month when we get the statements. If for some reason I'm incapacitated DW, a former bookkeeper, will balance them. It's a lot easier since we started using Quicken in about 1991.
 
Fraud and mistakes happen. Within the past 6 months, wife and I both had fraud charges on our credit cards. About 3 years ago, the credit union didn’t post quarterly CD interest - contacted them about 3 days later and they fixed it.
You're smart to do that. When I was doing fraud investigation I was surprised at the lengths of time that some frauds such as ongoing embezzlements were allowed to continue because no one was "minding the store". Some of these went on for years because trust was misplaced.

All because no one was balancing their books.
 
It looks like at least some of us use Quicken, a spreadsheet or some other software.

I think of that like a checkbook register. It's my copy of the account transactions. I update it with the same deposits and withdrawals that the bank or CC company does. Then at regular intervals, I compare my version with theirs. Nowadays, I reconcile against the banks' on-line statements, not paper.

You could say there's no real value in this, and I couldn't disagree. Where I do find value is that every transaction I enter gets a payee, category and sub-category.

This allows me to run all kinds of reports. I have canned reports which come in handy at tax time or when I'm looking at something like my utility usage. I can create new reports, like I did when we were talking in this forum about inflation, or how to calculate net worth. This time of year I often look at last year's transactions in a bunch of different ways.

The other huge benefit is having all my financial data local and available for me to search. I'd say I look up some past purchase several times a month. No digging through receipts or searching multiple credit card web sites. It's all at my fingertips, going back to the early 90's.
 
It looks like at least some of us use Quicken, a spreadsheet or some other software.

I think of that like a checkbook register. It's my copy of the account transactions. I update it with the same deposits and withdrawals that the bank or CC company does. Then at regular intervals, I compare my version with theirs. Nowadays, I reconcile against the banks' on-line statements, not paper.
Quicken is definitely like a checkbook register, except that it holds many registers all together. You consolidate all your accounts there so you always have a big picture and each account has a register that can be checked against a statement. And it can download transactions and handles security values and scheduling of bills and transfers/deposits. And organizes a bund of reports such as current net worth, spending for the year by category.
 
What's a checkbook??


I do review transactions in my account. A couple of times a month. But I don't balance. I long ago began trusting my bank's ability to add and subtract.
 
Every month especially for cash flow, but also to assess where extra cash should be sleeping...
 
I balance our checkbook every month. Is it necessary? Not really.

It does cause me to review where our money is going. It doesn’t take long and the little math exercise is probably good for me.
 
I maintain a check register in excel that calculates the amount and the reconciliation balance. I use it to manage my cash flow and catch expenses I may have missed logging. I reconcile several times a month sporadically whenever I log into my CU and always up date my finances at the end of the month as well. I usually don't find much but several times a year a restaurant never processes my tip -assume lost receipt. I've caught a couple overages on tips as well... none huge and only challenged one as it did not seem like a possible mistake.
 
I balance our checkbook every month. Is it necessary? Not really.

It does cause me to review where our money is going. It doesn’t take long and the little math exercise is probably good for me.
I check my checking, savings, and 401(k) accounts every single week. I'm still w*rking and the company that does the payroll for my employer makes numerous mistakes. Some of the mistakes come from my employer, though. I'll bet I find at least 6 per year.
Such as:

Holiday or vacation time not credited.
Incorrect hours on my paycheck
Incorrect 401(k) contribution
Incorrect payroll allocation between checking and savings
Incorrect insurance deduction

So yes, I check all my accounts every week.
 
Well... yes... depending on the definition of 'checkbook'.

I look online at our checking accounts at least once a month. Almost all of our bills are paid via credit card (for convenience and cash-back), so a typical month looks like: one deposit (our monthly 'paycheck'), one withdrawal to pay for credit card, one withdrawal [my account] for ACA premium. Every so often a check for estimated taxes or, during summer months, the lawn guy, occasionally an ATM.

I do keep paper track of checks written from both accounts. But I don't balance those.
 
When I married DW#1 (God rest her soul) in 1975, she would always round up the amount in the register. If the check was for $9.27, she would enter $10. That didn't last very long. :)
In the 80, I had an elderly neighbor (she was mid 80s) that always asked me to balance her checkbook. She was notorius for writing the incorrect amount in the register.
I'm a 25+yr Quicken and online bank user which make it very easy.
 
It looks like at least some of us use Quicken, a spreadsheet or some other software.

....

The other huge benefit is having all my financial data local and available for me to search. I'd say I look up some past purchase several times a month. No digging through receipts or searching multiple credit card web sites. It's all at my fingertips, going back to the early 90's.
Yes, exactly this -- the Quicken search function mentioned by CaptTom is something we use at least a couple times a month, too. For every transaction that I reconcile I can add more description and I almost always do. Makes it easy to look up how much we spent on nephew 1's birthday present when I go to get something for nephew 2 (lord help me if the amounts aren't close to equal 😂). Or if we have questions, like "who was that cabinet contractor who did such a good job 15 years ago at our old house?" I can find the answer in a minute without physically looking through files of old paperwork.
 
LOL, just for fun, I just ran a Quicken report on how many pizzas I have paid for since 2001.
72 transactions
$1205.00

That is really useful information. LOL.
I'm quite sure I have paid for way more than 72 pizzas since 2001 but there's no way to know since most or all were bought with a credit card. There would be no line item entry anywhere for "pizza".
 
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