Do you round up your checks?

[2moretrees]

When you enter amounts in your checkbook, do you round up the amount. This seems like an interesting idea to me and I wanted to know if anyone has used this and if it works well. How do you keep track of your true balance if you do this?

[PennyPincher]

I have not heard of that. It would drive me insane. If I'm even pennies off, I wonder where I made a mistake. I think there is the potential to run into problems there...and it makes it harder to track small expenses. You might be less likely to catch a bank charge or mistake of $1.50 or something like that if you're always rounding... It may work for some, but I'll stick with the exact balance.

[DivaJen]

I've never herad of doing this. Like the previous poster, I hate being even pennies off in my balance, so this would drive me crazy.

[sdc2027]

I do- It allows me to save money and at the end of the month the money goes to the savings- kinda like paying with cash only in dollars and putting the change in a jar.

[akaivyleaf]

My sister does this. I attributed it to her bad math skills. She always rounds up. I'm further convinced its her bad math skills because in theory she's supposed to have "overages" in her account but manages to bounce a check at least once a month. She'd do better with a coin jar, but who am I to tell her, just her younger sister.

[vendigirl]

I tried it once. It made me crazy. I'm way to anal about balancing my accounts in Quicken to be able to use that method. I don't see much accumulating in my account by doing that anyway- maybe a few dollars a month. Not worth the stress to my perfetionist nature.

[2moretrees]

Originally Posted by sdc2027

I do- It allows me to save money and at the end of the month the money goes to the savings- kinda like paying with cash only in dollars and putting the change in a jar.

How do you keep track of the correct amount?

[akaivyleaf]

Originally Posted by 2moretrees

How do you keep track of the correct amount?

You don't. Although people think they do in their head or something, or in actuality don't really want to keep track.

In the interest of simple aritmetic...
If your purchase is 4.50, you write the check for 4.50 but you subtract 5.00 from your account, thereby creating a .50 float
The next purchase is for 5.25 but you write in your register 6.00, creating a .75 cent cushion.

Your register has a total of 11.00 spent, but you actually spent 9.75 leaving you 1.25 hidden, or saved, or forgotten about, or cushion

At the end of the month, if you're a big check writer, you might have a little stash... not so easy anymore with debit cards.

Sharon

[terry1156]

I did this when we were at the point we needed to save every penny. It can add up to a small amount each month. When we were doing this, we trusted the bank statement for the most part. There was one time that it was obviously wrong (it had it that we only saved about $1.00 when we had written a lot of checks that month). At that point, we when through that month's carbons (our check book leaves a carbon of who the check was written to and for how much) to find the mistake.

[itsmejan]

I manage my checkbook by rounding out . I use this for checks and debits. I always check my statement for correct checks cleared and debits. It is easier for some to write the correct amount in one column and round in the other. I only use to round amount. I never plan a use for the extra. My aunt did this for years and when my uncle had a heart attack she closed out the account hoping for a little to get by on,she had $11,000.00 in the account. she never looked at a statement ,but those were the "olden days" LOL JAN in NC

[Momtwo]

I couldn't do it. That system would drive me crazy. I am an accountant and hence everything has to be accurate and to the penny.