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A confession

December 6th, 2006 at 03:48 am

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...

Posted in savings | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “A confession”

  1. sarah Says:
    December 6th, 2006 at 11:11 am 1165403467
    1165403467

    If it works for you it works. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

  2. Broken Arrow Says:
    December 6th, 2006 at 02:48 pm 1165416502
    1165416502

    What sarah said. Smile

  3. paigu Says:
    December 6th, 2006 at 03:03 pm 1165417415
    1165417415

    The only thing I do is keep track of the check # and to whom it was paid. As long as you know where your money is going, no need to track every last cent!

  4. monkeymama Says:
    December 6th, 2006 at 11:28 pm 1165447708
    1165447708

    I don't think I ever really balanced my check book much before either. If it got way off kilter from my written record and I didn't know why I would sit down and reconcile. I add bad mostly - LOL.

    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.

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