Checkbook Error

**AmyBoz** · 03-29-2005, 09:34 AM

Okay, so, I keep the checkbook. My handwriting is neater and I like to pay bills right when they come in, which dh doesn't, so early on, we agreed that I could be the keeper of the checks.

Weeeeeeelllllllll...last summer when we sold our old house and bought our new house, we had checks and deposits flying around like crazy....CRAZY, I tell ya! Last night, dh (finally) updated Microsoft Money after almost a year of letting it sit idly by and he reconciled it with our checkbook, bank statments, and online banking. Turns out everything reconciled EXCEPT the checkbook.

The good news? We have approximately $3500 more than we thought we had in checking. (Thought we had $27) There were a few deposits I forgot to record.

The bad news? I'm really upset with myself because I pride myself on attention to detail and accuracy. The activity of last summer was unusual, but I'm still upset.

Oh well...the great news is that dh's next two paychecks can go directly into savings because we shouldn't need them to pay bills for at least a month due to this windfall! Or maybe we'll take $3000 of it and dump it toward the home equity loan! Dh and I will talk about this tonight.

Have you ever made a big mistake with the checkbook? Was it in your favor? Against you? What was the result?

**Sara Noel** · 03-29-2005, 11:03 AM

Not the checkbook, but mostly because we rarely use it anymore. I have made mistakes in calculating our budget though. It was a situation similar to yours where it was in our favor and I should have been thrilled (well I was) but the fact remained that I was emotionally stressed (not hugely stressed, but it was on my mind) by our budget and it was a miscalculation.

I'm a lot like you in priding myself in being pretty detail oriented and I felt well...I felt somewhat inadequate.

I am happy that Gabe and I do sit down together and discuss our budget. I have to wonder how long I would have been carrying on thinking we had less if we didn't sit down together.

Gabe and I are quite a pair when it comes to our money. We check our online statement daily. (yes. We're a couple of goofs over here)

I'm not much of a spender and some people may think discussing spending $25 with your husband is like asking permission, but it's not like that at all. We both discuss any and all purchases and make sure ALL money is accounted for.

I attribute our financial "success" to the fact we're both on the same page. I guess also because of the fact that if either of us makes an error in calculations, the other is there to catch it. lol

I sometimes just feel bad because I handled the money for companies in the past, and when I make an error on my own, it's a bit of a kick to my ego.

I'm happy you both sorted it out and that it is in your favor.

**AmyBoz** · 03-29-2005, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by Sara Noel
I'm not much of a spender and some people may think discussing spending $25 with your husband is like asking permission, but it's not like that at all. We both discuss any and all purchases and make sure ALL money is accounted for.

We're the same way here. We discuss every purchase. In fact, we have been im'ing each other for the past 20 minutes deciding how to use his Barnes and Noble gift card he got for Christmas. He really wanted the "Anchorman" dvd, so I told him I could order it with free shipping through mypoints and then get points toward a different gift card. Since there was money left over, he told me to get something for myself, so I got James Patterson's new book "Honeymoon" and then we decided to use the remainder of the gift card on a DVD for Julia and Patrick. However, even though it's free because of the gift card, we wouldn't really have used it without discussing it first.

**PrairieRose** · 03-29-2005, 04:05 PM

Good for you Amy

Those are the mistakes that you want to make, the ones in your favor

Unfortunately I've had the displeasure of it going the other way, when I was much younger and I can tell you for sure that that's NO fun at all. It's great that you have money saved that you weren't even aware you were saving

**baronmom** · 03-29-2005, 06:24 PM

I have quite a few times where dh would forget to give me a receipt, and we would end up with less than I had listed in the checkbook. Sometimes I could have killed him for stuff like that. Especially when it was over $50. I would think I was doing good for the month, and wham!! I would be almost left with nothing.