Oy balancing account...

KatieCutie05 · July 2015

I'm the anal budget nazi - everything is always tracked - always balances - down to the penny.
BUT stupid me never checked the bank account to make sure it matched each month. I just assumed that if the budget balances and im tracking every penny we make/spend then it would all be there - WRONG!

I thought i had about 1404.17 in a buffer/savings split between different fund. and so far this month income minus expenses is 112.91 minus 340 daycare.

That SHOULD put our bank account at about 1,177.08... NOPE its 668.72. HOW am i seriously just missing 500 dollars?!!! I don't just leave things out, i track everything - based on our banks transactions. How could I possibly have screwed up that bad?! I figured okay i must have taken some cash and put it in the safe - nope. 500 dollars just grew legs and walked away.

Now i have to go through every transaction since December and figure out what went wrong! I'm a disaster.

I've been using Everydollar.com since December. How do you balance your checking account? Is there a way to do it easier then the old fashioned way. Or at the end of the month should i just figure out what we should have and see if it matches?

als1982 · July 2015

We put everything on our credit card and then move money weekly from our checking to pay it off. Once we move that money from checking to the credit card, we update our spreadsheet to reflect the new totals of each line item.

We don't budget monthly, but for each individual paycheck. Upon receipt of every check we start a new budget which always includes a $150 buffer in the checking account. Anything left over from the previous budget goes to the current goal (currently H's student loan).

MommyLiberty5013 · July 2015

I use online banking to track all the transactions and I use an old fashioned check book register. I use the register because then I know what has been subtracted even if it hasn't been debited from the account yet. Also, we don't use debit cards, so we don't have a ton of transactions (just DH's direct deposits, billpays, and the occasional paper check (tuitions, church giving), and the mortgage which is on auto pay).

I would print off all your bank statements since December. Use a highlighter to mark them as you see whether or not you have listed them in your budget plan. If you have things on the statement not highlighted then they would be things you forgot to note in your budget.

Also, are you sure your starting balance in December is accurate?

Are you being charged any bank fees?

cbee817 · July 2015

I just keep an excel spreadsheet of the checking account- I have a total for the first day of each month and each transaction gets a row so it's clear what debit/credit took place. Here's an example:

Date Description Amount

7/1/2015 In Checking: $1,000.00

7/3/2015 Paycheck: $1,000.00

7/7/2015 Credit Card: -$700.00

7/15/2015 Transfer to Savings: -$500.00

7/17/2015 Paycheck: $1000.00

7/25/2015 Mortgage: -$800.00

8/1/2015 In Checking: $1000.00

That way every penny is tracked and I can usually project out a few months of expenses to see how the months flow between paychecks and payments.

brij2006 · July 2015

I do the same thing as you, and use everydollar.com. However, I also have a spreadsheet where I put our beginning balance in checking each month, then track every transaction and mark it off when it clears. It's some extra work, but I was running into the same issue you are.

Xstatic3333 · July 2015

I use a spreadsheet that I update as we actually move through each pay period. I bold things that have been paid out, and add or adjust for anything unexpected. Then, I check my bank balance daily to make sure it all lined up. For me if it doesn't, it's usually related to the gas budget. I use an app on my phone and it only takes 2 seconds to check, so it doesn't feel burdensome to me.

Mustard76 · July 2015

We put everything on our credit card, so there isn't all that much to track, but I do still keep an old fashioned register. I use mint.com to get an overview of our totals and to track out net worth, but our day-to-day tracking is done on paper with a register.

simplyelise · July 2015

This is actually something that DH checks for us. He goes on our online banking site every day to account for every transaction. We recently decided to stop doing a cash envelope for grocery and go back to debit. So we have a lot more transactions now to track. He just verifies that everything from the bank transactions was put in as a transaction on everydollar. My purchases usually don't get put in right away because I have an android and thus no app, so sometimes he has to update the app with a purchase I made the day before.

In the past I definitely had to go back a couple months and figure out what caused my balance to be so off from what I expected. Like PPs mentioned, it's usually a fuel thing for me.

hoffse · July 2015

We check the bank account every day. I don't keep a paper register, but we do everything we can by CC anyway (and limit our use of cash), so we have electronic statements of everything generated for us.

I hate paying by check because sometimes it takes awhile for people to get their sh*t together and deposit/cash it.

My guess is one of you has been withdrawing cash and not accounting for it. Honestly, I would make a habit to check the account at least once a week so you can track/remember those things. My H does occasionally withdraw cash for things like parking, tips, office group gifts, etc. and he usually doesn't tell me (no need - it's his money too) and it's usually not very much at once.... But $20 here and $40 there can add up if I never looked at it. I'm the one who keeps up with the budget. I keep a google doc that H checks every few days, but I'm the one who enters the transactions.

Something that has really helped - especially since we do use CC's - is that I recently added a column titled "how much do we have left to spend." Every few days I look at the bank account and using that I start adding in the paychecks still due for the month, and then I subtract out the balances on our cards, our loans, our fixed costs, the minimum amount we want to put into savings, etc. so that we can see how much we have left for the rest of the month net (and not just in categories). H knows to check the sheet before withdrawing cash or whatever, and that column lets him know whether a $40 withdrawal is going to put us over our net budget or not for the month.

KatieCutie05 · July 2015

now i'm even more confused. In november i was using excel, mint, and goodbudget for my Sinking funds. The correct baby savings total carried over but for some reason our car fund is 1653 but goodbudget has it at 740 and somehow my october excel file is missing so i cant even figure out where i got that 1653 number from.

I think i'm going to give up trying to figure out what happened and start fresh with the amount we actually have. H is the excel guru so he's gonna make an excel sheet for me. Should I take out my sinking funds and translate them to Cash instead of having them all stuffed in our checking account? H thinks we should do just an old fashioned envelope but i love how everydollar keeps track and carries over the total from month to month. But i don't know how to verify that i really have what i think i have. Unless i keep track of the sinking funds and check register in the same excel file. but we use our debit card for everything so i can't fathom writing out every expense... the transactions took up 4 pages in small print on our december statement.

simplyelise · July 2015

KatieCutie05 said:

now i'm even more confused. In november i was using excel, mint, and goodbudget for my Sinking funds. The correct baby savings total carried over but for some reason our car fund is 1653 but goodbudget has it at 740 and somehow my october excel file is missing so i cant even figure out where i got that 1653 number from.

I think i'm going to give up trying to figure out what happened and start fresh with the amount we actually have. H is the excel guru so he's gonna make an excel sheet for me. Should I take out my sinking funds and translate them to Cash instead of having them all stuffed in our checking account? H thinks we should do just an old fashioned envelope but i love how everydollar keeps track and carries over the total from month to month. But i don't know how to verify that i really have what i think i have. Unless i keep track of the sinking funds and check register in the same excel file. but we use our debit card for everything so i can't fathom writing out every expense... the transactions took up 4 pages in small print on our december statement.

We keep our sinking funds in a separate savings account. It's different from our efund and right now it has two topics: car replacement and gym membership. I considered doing a separate savings account for each, but the current increments make it easy to tell what belongs to what. We list it on everydollar under the savings box and it adds it at the end of the month on there. I wish everydollar would let you do savings transactions instead of automatically updating when you go to the new month. But the separate savings account is really nice for sinking funds. Even if you do one like us, you could set up a real easy excel doc to track the funds within the single savings account.

I don't track our current sinking fund in excel because we just do $100 for car and $20 for gym each month. But I've already set up a spreadsheet for the downpayment and efund savings which we will start tackling post debt-payoff. It just lets you put in your payments from the month and updates with a running total, so it's nothing fancy by any means.

jessica490 · July 2015

I obsessively check our account almost everyday online and compare it to my checkbook register....even still I miss things or make mistakes...don't feel bad.

hoffse · July 2015

Honestly, this is why we just track everything manually on an old-fashioned excel sheet. It also forces us to actually look at the accounts themselves because otherwise we don't know how much we have spent to date.

I think you should start over and just use excel. Nothing fancy, just keep a running tally of your cash flow.

abrewer5 · July 2015

I wouldn't completely give up. Still look thru the transactions in your bank out to look for anything suspicious... Something that you didn't purchase. My H noticed he was running out of money really quickly and didn't understand why, but also wasn't deligent about checking his account thankfully the bank caught on that someone had stolen his card number and was charging small things like gas, fast food, etc. in another state. He was able to get the money back but it went back a few months and added up to a good bit of money.

At the very least I would review transactions as far back as you think you need to and just make sure everything looks normal for what you and your H would be spending money on. After you do this and if everything looks ago I would just start fresh this month and chalk it up to a learning lesson.

From there I would check in daily/weekly/monthly, whatever works for you, to make sure you're tracking correctly and everything looks normal. Good luck!

blondie42107 · July 2015

We use an excel spreadsheet. I actually used one of the monthly budgets templates that was available and tweaked it to work for us. Over a year in and working well!

KatieCutie05 · July 2015

How do you "connect" your budget with your checking account register - if i just track expenses in excel with my bank account balance then isn't that the same thing the bank is doing? Or does it just allow you to see a start balance and end balance? Sinking funds that carry over from month to month would increase your balance from the beginning to the end of the month - so do you just compare the start balance to the end balance to make sure that you actually have the correct SF amounts you planned for? does that make sense?

AprilZ81 · July 2015

I was having this problem before with our budget. We were at/under our monthly budget and then at the end of the month we would be eating into our cushion as we paid bills and transferred money to savings.

What I figured out was HOW we were budgeting our income. For example if you enter into GoodBudget that you received $1,000 every two weeks, versus twice a month, versus $500 every week it will give you a different amount you can spend for a monthly budget.

The difference between them comes in the two extra paychecks that the people who get paid every two weeks receives. Most apps will take that "extra" paycheck and spread the amount throughout the year giving you money to spend in that you haven't earned yet.

Once I figured it out we decided to keep it that way, but if you want to pretend the extra paycheck doesn't exist until you receive it you need to adjust how you record your income.

KAdams767 · July 2015

KatieCutie05 said:

How do you "connect" your budget with your checking account register - if i just track expenses in excel with my bank account balance then isn't that the same thing the bank is doing? Or does it just allow you to see a start balance and end balance? Sinking funds that carry over from month to month would increase your balance from the beginning to the end of the month - so do you just compare the start balance to the end balance to make sure that you actually have the correct SF amounts you planned for? does that make sense?

I would not keep sinking funds in my checking account, especially if you are having trouble keeping everything straight. I don't use the apps you mentioned, so I don't know how they work at tracking things like that, but I use a separate savings account for all sinking funds, and then just a running balance tally spreadsheet in excel. So, if I am saving for taxes, IRA deposits, a new car and a vacation, I have four columns in my spreadsheet. Once I make my deposit to the sinking fund, I go to my spreadsheet and add a portion of the deposit to each column as it was intended. If I deposit $1,000 total, and $250 is for the car fund, $500 for taxes and $250 for vacation, I just throw those numbers under each category and keep a running balance. Leaving all this in my checking account would make me bonkers.

As for "connecting" the checking account register and budget, I feel like you are conflating ideas. A budget is great, but it's not always real, its a paper template of what you "want" to spend and save. Your actual bank statements are what has actually happened. If something unexpected comes up and you forget about it, your budget doesn't know that unless you tell it. The bank statement knows automatically as soon as it hits your account. I keep a spreadsheet of my expenses and what I have outstanding, but I still check my actual account every payday to make sure it's accurate. I don't see any way around actually looking at your account, unless you have a huge buffer in there or a really hands-off about budgeting and it's not a big deal if things don't exactly line up or match.

hoffse · July 2015

I agree, the sinking funds need to be in a separate account. If you start commingling everything it will be impossible to keep track of.

The difference between what the bank is recording and what you are recording is things like categories of purchases, how those purchases compare to the goal budget, and the overall picture of cash flow. The bank account is a back-check to make sure you have accounted for everything and not lost track of a purchase or withdrawal of cash.

takmjs · July 2015

Sorry to budge in on this post, but I'm just curious how specific most of you are with your spreadsheets? I have a spreadsheet to track my expenses, but I don't know what is most beneficial. Right now, I have some specific stores listed that I frequently go to (our local grocery stores, Walmart, Amazon, etc.), but I don't know if I should instead be listing the types/categories of items I buy. I'm thinking of the cases where I might buy some food products at Walmart, or some paper or baby products at the grocery store. I'm just curious how this group does their spreadsheet.

Thanks!

als1982 · July 2015

I think general categories is best. We don't do a budget monthly, but instead budget every paycheck individually, however over the course of a month, here are the categories we budget:

Mortgage/taxes/insurance

Internet

Water/Sewer

H Mad Money

My Mad Money

Food

Entertainment

Car Gas

Phone

Kansas Gas Service

Electric

Gym

Dental Insurance

Savings

ROTH IRA Contributions

H Student Loan Monthly Minimum

H Student Loan Manual Payment

Miscellaneous

Some posters also have categories for sinking funds for things that aren't necessarily paid monthly (like annual subscriptions, dues, taxes, etc.), but our largest bill like this is only about $300 (car insurance), so we just cash flow items like that.

KatieCutie05 · July 2015

I have been budgetting for things monthly that we don't necessarily use or only use like half of it - then i'll let the balance carry over to the next month so we don't lose all our debt money to random crap all the time. this is for things like... car maintenance (40), home maintenance(25), propane (50), gifts40), baby(30), clothes(20), vet(20), travel(50) and garbage (29) life insurance (15) but thats not even enough money to be honest

But the balance of all that just piles up in my checking account. And apparently thats not working.... but if i move it all to my savings then i'll end up with a bunch of transfers every month and only the first 3 are free... so maybe we need to simplify and just do a few big ones and leaving the rest out.

CuriousKiddosMama · July 2015

There were two things that screwed us up at the beginning. The first was our discover card. We didn't include in our starting balances the balance of our discover card from the previous month.
The second was our cash envelops. When I compared the spreadsheet to the bank account it never matched because of the cash we had on hand.

Oy balancing account...

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