Checkbook register

Being a fan of Dave Ramsey I try to implement alot of what he teaches. Okay everything he teaches. One thing he mentions is keeping your checking account/check book balanced. Well in today's world of on-line banking you can see what is going on at the bank in real time however it was important to me to master this skill.

I started out with good old fashioned pen and paper, but found it increasing difficult to keep it up. I would always get messed up if I forgot to make an entry or if I entered an entry incorrectly. I'm a little OCD so trying to correct these made a mess so didn't sit well with me. Additionally, whenever it did come to balancing the account I would be off by some bizarre amount.

Well I started researching what software was available to help keep track of these things. I tried mint and yodlee and I know years ago I tried quick books and microsoft money too. I would always get frustrated with this type of software as you would typically download your transactions and things wouldn't always jive and I felt that they only told me where my money went than managing my money. Now this probably had more to do with user error than anything, but needless to say, it didn't work for me.

I finally came across clearcheckbook.com ! This met my criteria exactly. You manually input transactions-like the old fashioned pen and paper method, it has an on-line interface as well as mobile apps for both andriod and iphone and I can reconcile my account properly. So I can see if checks that I've written have cleared or on-line purchases with my debit card. It even has scheduled reminders for items that automatically hit your account each month. Did I mention its free?

Now if you swipe your debit card like a crazy person I can see how the manual entry thing could get exhausting but I love that when I get my bank statement I can go down the line of items and check them off and that the balances match. If for some reason things don't balance its much simpler to double check my transactions and make any necessary changes.

I was able to set up budgets so I can see at a glance where we stand. And I love that Ben and I can see what's going on with our accounts in real time on the go. Now we are just trying to figure out how long we should keep receipts! How long do you keep yours?