Do you check your bank account balance?

[Anonymous]

I haven't in about 10 years. I don't even check my paystubs but once a year or so.

I am fortunate that I don't have to think before purchases. We are pretty well off.

Since we had kids--DH handles investments, etc with my input. I am a microbiologist -- he was an econ major so it works for us.

Yes- I do know all of our accounts and where the $ is being put and what are net worth is. I just don't do the bills or ever check our checking account.

[Anonymous]

I check it daily.

I want to catch any discrepancies in a timely manner.

[Anonymous]

I check it once a month. I'm always shocked at my checking to savings ratio. I feel fortunate to not have to watch every penny (still Im my own cheap date).

[Anonymous]

I was the victim of identity theft once - now I check every day

[Anonymous]

I check almost daily. Last month, I caught a fraudulent debit w/in 20 minutes of the cash being taken out. We got the debit card shut down immediately before more cash was gone. Even though cash flow is fine and I don't worry about the cushion in the account, there's too much risk of identity theft these days not to be on top of your own account.

[Anonymous]

I check twice per month (essentially after each paycheck). I only keep about $300 in my checking account as I rarely use checks, they're just for emergencies. I keep a larger buffer in my savings account and the rest of our emergency fund, life happens funds, etc in a money market. I transfer money once a month from the money market to the checking to pay bills. Why do I do this? Checking accounts get no interest. My savings account gets less than 1% and my money market gets about 1.5%. While this may not seem like a lot, over the course of a year, I get a couple hundred dollars of interest annually. It's worth it to me to spend about 3-5 minutes per month to make a couple of hundred dollars.

Plus, having been the victim of credit card fraud in the past, I know that I need to check because you can be a financial victim very easily these days.

[Anonymous]

Constantly. But then I have dividend transfers from investments to keep track of and the tax consequences of not doing so are fatal to me.

[Anonymous]

Daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. I'm crazy like that. My husband swears it is so I can bitch at him about everything he does OK, maybe it is a little, but we do have to watch our spending and he doesn't always seem to understand that message. Especially now that my company cut my hours for a while - he can't go spend $20 for lunch.

[Anonymous]

chickychen wrote:Our bank offers mobile banking, so I set it up to send my a daily text with my balance. That way, I can figure out if there have been any fraudulent charges, and helps keep me in check with spending. Also, I set up a text alert in case a purchase over a certain amount is made, so I can deal with it immediately if it actually is fraudulent.

You learn something new everyday. I did not know you can get your balance sent to you!

[Anonymous]

In identity fraud cases, won't the bank reimburse you?

Seems like bad policy to not do so.

[Anonymous]

We track our finances with Mint.com - I probably sign on every 2-3 days. Caught fraudulent charges twice. To PP at 23:44 - yes, the bank will reimburse you IF they (you) know about it. I was glad we caught it before it got worse because you are not reimbursed right away.

[Anonymous]

I check everyday and sometimes more than once if I'm waiting on something. I make sure restaurants put in correct totals, returns appear, things don't appear twice. It's a minute to know I'm financially sound and it's all on my phone so it's far from an inconvenience.

[Anonymous]

DH is anal to the point of annoyance. I am on the other hand would be like you OP. I was in fact when I was single. Now I know we have a significant cushion and let DH handle it all, I know he checks everyday and has his own spread sheets.

By any chance op do you have ADD? This is actually one of the symptoms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In identity fraud cases, won't the bank reimburse you?

Seems like bad policy to not do so.

They usually will but it's a HUGE pain in the ass. Last summer, a car rental place out at the Arizona airport charged us fraudulently. We had rented a car with them months before, and when my husband went back out on business and rented a car with his business credit card, they charged his business card AND our personal credit card... which was not presented to them (and to which they claimed "We never store credit card information"- obviously you do if you could charge it!). I called the car rental company and they said they could not access accounts to reverse charges, so it was up to the bank. We had to send them ALL kinds of info- our credit card statement, the business card's statement (to prove we'd been charged twice), I can't even remember what all else. They put the money back in our account, but took it out 2 months later because we'd been told we could email something that actually needed to be faxed. Once we faxed it, the money was put back in for good. It was just a huge hassle. So yes, they will reimburse you, but it will take some legwork on your part. And the sooner you catch it, the easier it is to prove it was fraudulent and get your money back. If you find a charge that's 6+ months old you have to go dig through 6 months' worth of statements and all that for the exact charges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In identity fraud cases, won't the bank reimburse you?

Seems like bad policy to not do so.

Yes, BUT it is a PITA and it usually takes them a few days to get it straight--in the meantime, you are out the cash. Second, THERE IS A TIME LIMIT to this. You can't call them up a year after the fact and complain. It has to be within a certain amount of time after presentment of the item. (I want to say 90 days).