I have never in my life balanced my chequebook and have no plans to start.
I save off of the top (automatic debit) for retirement, have a small
emergency fund, and keep a healthy balance in my chequing account (I'm blessed I don't live paycheque to paycheque). All my bills but two are taken from my account automatically. The two cheques I write are for the first of the month.
I look at my statements when they come in. Usually I can figure out what I've spent. Never seen anything weird on them. They get then get filed.
I do meet with a financial planner 2 or 3 times a year to go over where my investments are and I may tweak things then. The rest of the time I don't think about it at all. Sometimes I may open a statement but that's what the meeting is for. I don't have to.
I have two short term financial "things to do". One is to figure out approximately my Jan 1 raise and put the entire raise into savings. Once I figure out the added amount I'll get the automatic withdrawals
changed and then I can forget about it again. The other is to bring up my emergency fund to a larger amount. But I get a bonus in Feb most years - so that is on the backburner until then.
I feel wrong doing it this way but it works for me. I have no need to get more exact. My geek side thinks about balancing to the penny but its not interesting to the rest of me. I have no problems doing it this way. If it ends up being a problem I'll change. I refuse to add to my guilt or things to do...
A confession
December 6th, 2006 at 03:48 am
December 6th, 2006 at 11:11 am 1165403467
December 6th, 2006 at 02:48 pm 1165416502
December 6th, 2006 at 03:03 pm 1165417415
December 6th, 2006 at 11:28 pm 1165447708
Now that it is all in Quicken I Reconcile it every week or with the clik of a button. I wouldn't bother if it wasn't so dang easy. With Quicken and Online Banking though it is easy to keep on top of.
Balancing to the penny is silly. I would be more worried if you didn't look at your statements, but as long as you look them over you should be okay. As an accountant, we round every thing - pennies waste time.