Your Two Cents: Do You Balance Your Checkbook?

I balance my checkbook almost every night and then scan my receipts to my computer and shred the originals. I will keep and file any related to my car, school or home in case I need it at a later date. I am a super organized person and this helps me keep track of my money. I can also look at the day and see what I spent and where I could have cut back. It is like a running audit.

i do a large tally of my checkbook at the end of the week, but i just have not made daily checkbook balancing a natural part of my day. maybe it's because my day-to-day expenses are usually small (a starbucks coffee, a magazine in the student center, a sandwich from the deli, etc.).

I do it all online!

i wouldnt even know where to begin balancing a check-book.

I do it every week or two. It takes forever and is a pain, but it makes me feel more secure or something to have it all on paper! I do double-check what I have against my online ledger.

i don't actually keep track of things in a check book, but i look online on a daily basis to make sure that i know all the charges and that everything seems 'kosher'. i guess it's close to the same thing right?

I know how to balance a checkbook but I do it all online.

My mom taught me how to balance a checkbook, but I haven't done it in years. We keep enough slush in the checking account that my husband and I don't run any risk of bouncing checks, and I look over the bank statement (and credit card statement) each month to make sure there's nothing out of whack. And there's online if I ever need to know specifically what the account looks like right now, but I can't remember the last time I needed to know.

I do use the little book that comes with your checks to keep track of all the checks I write, though. That way I can match the checks up to the bank statement at the end of the month, and it gives me an indication of how long its been since I last paid a bill -- that was the only way I noticed that my mailman delivered my credit card bill to the wrong address one month.

Once a month

I use Google Docs to do a daily budget. It's like Microsoft Excel -- you enter little formulas into the cells to add and subtract. I haven't bounced a charge in the year since I've been doing this (which is huge for me)!

I usually check my balance at the end of a shopping day or when I make multiple withdrawals throughout the week.

I hate to balance my checkbook. That's why I love my check card. If I don't have the money then it won't clear purchase. But I do check my balance at least once a week or two weeks, on line. So far I've never had a problem with my balance. So no bounce checks ever for me.

I balance my checkbook daily with my receipts from that day. I find that this is the best way for me because I always know exactly how much money is in my account without having to check online. I used to just check my balance online but I would always end up forgetting about a check I had written that hadn't been cashed or something. This is just what works for me.

I try to keep a baalanced checkbook, but I monitor online too.

I honestly rely on online banking. I know I should take matters into my own hands because I've noticed a couple of duplicate charges in the past, but I've become pretty reliant on my bank's organizational setup.

i do it in my head. is that weird?

I only write two checks a month (one for rent and one for a credit card bill that I can't seem to figure out how to pay online) because I have all my bills set up to be paid electronically, so I just check my balance online.

I have one account I balance when I write checks and the other account is strickly online payments.

I do a damn good job at it in my head. For some reason I track it that way best. A few times a week I check things online or by phone. It probably helps that I write out the bills once a month so I have an idea of everything.

I dont have or know anyone who does - a checkbook. Everythings done online/with visa debit cards. Weird

I don't almost all of my purchases are done with my debit card. I check my bank account about 3 times for the week online. My paycheck is always the same and my expenses rarely every change so I have a basic idea of how much I can spend per month. And my husband and I rarely write checks.

I am an accountant by trade so it's something I have been doing a very long time, it's very important to do with Identity Theft on the rise now adays. And you will discover many times your bank actually making errors to your accounts!

I balance my checkbook to make sure its in line with my online account. Don't ask. It never is!

I have a very intricate Excel sheet. I'd be lost without it. At any given moment I know how much money I'll have 6 or 8 months from now.

It's pretty awful because I know how to balance a checkbook but I still refuse to do it. What's even worse is that I work at a bank, but I can look at my balance all the time and reconcile receipts with what shows up online.

I monitor everything online and check each item on the monthly statement against receipts before storing them.

when i first started banking when i was 18, i balanced everything in my checkbook. but i found that i ran out of space in my register before i could use the checks (due to the debit card usage). so i stopped doing it, and i've only gotten overdrawn once or twice since then. now i bank at a teacher's credit union that doesn't have overdraft fees, so i don't freak out. if i wouldn't lose or ruin it in my purse, i would totally keep an excel spreadsheet and use that. i've thought about putting one on my phone/pda, but it's just such a hassle to open and use that it's pointless.

Yes! My mom taught me how to balance a checkbook and engraved in me the importance of doing so for every single purchase. I know where every penny is at any given time! I'd be lost if I didn't track my expenses.

i use quicken to track all my accounts.

Online is the best and most convenient way for me to keep track.