I use Mint, and check in once a week or so to re-categorize transactions that are mis-categorized, keep a general eye on things, and watch trends. I don't sweat anything that is within normal-ish budgeted amounts.
For me that is a lot easier than anything I'd have to manually do like a spreadsheet, although it took a while to set up in significant detail. I only deal with my checking register (in a spreadsheet) once or twice a month.
Post by aprilludgate on May 26, 2015 16:52:09 GMT -5
Ideally I check everything once a week, but more realistically it's every other week. Almost all our bills are automatically taken from our checking account, but I have a few bills due at various parts of the month that I opted to manually pay, and I use that as a reminder to check everything.
I track our bills and planned expenses on a spreadsheet, and I just glance through our accounts to make sure nothing seems crazy. It's a system I've played around with over the years, and it works really well for us. I've tried Mint several times, but I don't love it.
Post by FishChicks on May 26, 2015 17:09:23 GMT -5
Once a month I download everything, including all account balances and all spending. It helps me pay attention to our spending and make adjustments fairly quickly to meet our goals without being too onerous.
I'm terrible at this. I check my checking account 1-3 times a week just to see nothing crazy has occurred. I don't really ever track how much I spend in certain catagories. I do transfer money to savings at the beginning of the month, so after that, I can eat and drink and shop whatever i want as long as I don't spend more than I make. I'm sure this is not the MM way.
I don't track spending at all. I check my bank account balances probably 3-4 times a month, mostly to move money around to pay bills (they all come out of different accounts). I very rarely check the transactions, which is really bad.
If we have a lot of stuff going on, I check every day. If not much is going on, I check once a week. I use my bank's budgeting tool which means I have to categorize everything.
Our personal stuff... Maybe once a month. DH is on top of it and he checks daily. It's annoying when he will ask about a purchase before I have a chance to mention it to him, but nice that it's never something I need to worry about.
Spending...maybe once every other week. H checks on our bank accounts maybe every other week. I might look once a month if I'm curious then I just eye ball it too make sure there's nothing strange.
It's a lot easier now that we both get steady paychecks and don't have to deal with fluctuating incomes.
For the investment accounts, I think h checks it once a week just to make sure everything is running ok.
I use YNAB too, and I reconcile everything 2-3 times per week, and I check our checking accounts almost daily.
This is a big improvement over my former method of ballparking everything, which frequently ran us out of money. I've also found it's easier to put money in savings now that I'm tracking everything, since I like to watch the savings accounts grow.
Post by crashgizmo on May 26, 2015 21:57:59 GMT -5
I check Mint daily. It's a bit of an obsession. I know its probably not the best way to do it, but DH makes up for it by never looking at our finances.
Post by Emerald1486 on May 27, 2015 7:51:30 GMT -5
Daily. I keep my checkbook in Excel, so I am in it daily recording transactions for the day. Since most are on a credit card, I track those in the checkbook as well and record when I make payments. It takes me all of 15-20 minutes a day to do it. A couple months ago, there were a few, small fraud charges. The kind that check to see if a card number is good. I caught them right away since I do check daily.
I used to check my account a lot more frequently than I do these days. Once my bills are debited against my checking account, nothing else comes out unless I hit the ATM. By the 10th of the month, everything that needs to be paid has cleared so would rarely check it after the 10th until I get paid again at the end of the month.
My checkbook used to be balanced to the penny, but I think that the last check I wrote was to the dentist 2 months ago! I hardly ever write checks anymore.
Not often. I look at my credit card bills a few times a month so that I know what I owe when payday rolls around.
MH tracks household bills and the mortgage. Neither of us use a spreadsheet or Mint or anything like that. I find little scraps of paper around the house with his numbers written on it.
We track checking and savings on an Excel spreadsheet (general ledger) that I update every few days as I pay bills, check the CC statement, etc. I like to have it as up to date as possible. H has a separate tracker for retirement accounts that he updates as we get statements.
I get a daily email from one account, and the others I check maybe once every two weeks. I also used to check my credit cards often, but I stopped doing that. I glance over them quickly to make sure there's nothing out of place, but I used to be a lot better about it.
DH checks the checking accounts daily, and usually sends me a weekly e-mail with how much we have and what we have planned, and asking how much we have to pay in bills for the week.
The other accounts just ride unless we get a call from our FA or DH feels particularly OCD.
Post by hurricanedrunk on May 27, 2015 17:58:09 GMT -5
I check mint daily since it pulls almost all our accounts. Monthly I check our 401ks and other retirement stuff not on mint to update our net worth and retirement spreadsheets.