Do you balance your checkbook?

I use a bank with an online service in combination with MS Money. Makes balancing a snap. My only advice would be to be sure to keep all those debit receipts in your wallet, so that you know where they are and how much you spent. On more than one occasion I got double debited and had to get that corrected. I may not have noticed if I did not keep my account balanced and kept the receipts.

 

i do so religiously. i was raised to be very methodical with my finances. I save credit card receipts for the month and compare them to my monthly statement to make sure I don't get overcharged.

I also use online banking and compare my checkbook with the bank's current statement several times a week.

 

Nope.

My wife and I use quicken and it keeps our balance per se, but we work on building up a cushion, so if we take out $40, we put $45 in Quicken....

If times get tight we can reconcile the account. The last time we did that was 2 years ago and we had over $3,000 as a cushion.

I am not sure what our cushion is right now, but it is nice to know we have one..whatever it is...

Now at work, my books are balanced to the penny......no cushion there..



DaDakota

 

I'm like Behad and drapg I guess. I'm in Microsoft Money looking at expenses, balances, and poorfoolio performance on nearly a daily basis. I think the ATM card is a salvation because I can download those transactions directly into MS Money. I used to be pretty anal about everything I bought down to the product I bought. I remember when I first got Money several years ago, I could tell you how much money I spent on soft drinks or cereal per year. I don't quite get down to that granular a level anymore... (whew!)

 

I use a combination of Quicken and my bank's online service to balance mine. I make sure it is balanced whenever the statement comes in. I've had way to many bad experiences in the past with being overdrawn to not do it.

 

I use a 3 column ledger, 1 page per 2 week pay period.
The left page is the first payday of the month with mortgage on that one, the right page has the second pay period with utilities and other bills.

 

dude... where's your slide rule or do you use an abacus?

 

AH-HA!!
Duuude, I can't help it! My check book is too small and I feel better seeing all my monthly expenses in front of my face!