Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who balance your accounts separately, have you caught errors?

Never, but I'm doing it to know how much money I really have to avoid "tricks bring played on my mind." Before you could check balances online, this is what people actually did--there was no other way until your statement came to know what you had. The moment you wrote the check, you deducted the amount from your "balance" in the register. Ta da, no tricks.

Btw, I do this with an app now, if only to keep track of card purchases when I make them (I'm terrible with receipts).

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who balance your accounts separately, have you caught errors?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

NP here. As compared to reviewing your account and transactions online, isn't the only advantage to this that you'll catch arithmetic errors and outstanding checks? Chances of an aritchmetic error are extremely low and if someone rarely writes checks or maintains a sufficiently high balance to cover the margin of error isn't this kind of a waste of time?

You also catch fraudulent transactions. Since you typically have 60 days after which its your responsibility, its a good idea to do this monthly.

Also, now that many checks are cleared electronically, I don't always get a check image to verify some weird payment is something I actually intended to make.

Anonymous wrote:

NP here. As compared to reviewing your account and transactions online, isn't the only advantage to this that you'll catch arithmetic errors and outstanding checks? Chances of an aritchmetic error are extremely low and if someone rarely writes checks or maintains a sufficiently high balance to cover the margin of error isn't this kind of a waste of time?

Anonymous wrote:I have 2 checking accounts just for this purpose. I write checks only from one account. I transfer the money from my main account to my writing account when I write the check.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why? You should be looking at your account as if the money isn't there as soon as the check is written and until it is cleared. If you have the money to cover the check, and you know that eventually it will get cashed, this is a non issue. You balance your acct as if it already gone.

Yes, I know, but feels artificial to me to keep the "minimum" of the account at $2,000 more than it actually is. I balance my account online, so whenever I see the balance is $2,000 higher, it plays tricks on my mind that makes me think I have more money than I actually do. It's just a minor annoyance to have to have that feeling for two months.

Wait. Balancing your account online isn't balancing your account. The point of balancing it yourself is to catch mistakes that may be made by the bank; you'll never catch these if you check against their record exclusively. And furthermore, you won't know what you've put out as opposed to what you have sitting there, as you are seeing now.

We keep a shared google doc running where we essentially balance our checking account daily (or every other day). It's a copy of the bank's record, but by our account in real-time. Was tedious at first, but now habit. Works for us.

NP here. As compared to reviewing your account and transactions online, isn't the only advantage to this that you'll catch arithmetic errors and outstanding checks? Chances of an aritchmetic error are extremely low and if someone rarely writes checks or maintains a sufficiently high balance to cover the margin of error isn't this kind of a waste of time?

It's a huge help to us because we are able to see what our ACTUAL balance is versus what people have processed or claimed. Plus, we keep a section below the entries about expected upcoming expenses. So it's not really about errors as much as it is the real-time aspect.

We, however, live on a tight budget, so if we had 15K coming in each month we'd be a lot less inclined to keep track this way. So I suppose we are not in that sufficiently high balance range you speak of.

Honey, is that you? I could have written this word for word. It works for us and has also helped our long-term planning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why? You should be looking at your account as if the money isn't there as soon as the check is written and until it is cleared. If you have the money to cover the check, and you know that eventually it will get cashed, this is a non issue. You balance your acct as if it already gone.

Yes, I know, but feels artificial to me to keep the "minimum" of the account at $2,000 more than it actually is. I balance my account online, so whenever I see the balance is $2,000 higher, it plays tricks on my mind that makes me think I have more money than I actually do. It's just a minor annoyance to have to have that feeling for two months.

Wait. Balancing your account online isn't balancing your account. The point of balancing it yourself is to catch mistakes that may be made by the bank; you'll never catch these if you check against their record exclusively. And furthermore, you won't know what you've put out as opposed to what you have sitting there, as you are seeing now.

We keep a shared google doc running where we essentially balance our checking account daily (or every other day). It's a copy of the bank's record, but by our account in real-time. Was tedious at first, but now habit. Works for us.

NP here. As compared to reviewing your account and transactions online, isn't the only advantage to this that you'll catch arithmetic errors and outstanding checks? Chances of an aritchmetic error are extremely low and if someone rarely writes checks or maintains a sufficiently high balance to cover the margin of error isn't this kind of a waste of time?

It's a huge help to us because we are able to see what our ACTUAL balance is versus what people have processed or claimed. Plus, we keep a section below the entries about expected upcoming expenses. So it's not really about errors as much as it is the real-time aspect.

We, however, live on a tight budget, so if we had 15K coming in each month we'd be a lot less inclined to keep track this way. So I suppose we are not in that sufficiently high balance range you speak of.