General Chat

My OH has always worked on a similar system to OFITG.

When a bank statement or credit card bill comes in, he checks it ( pays it).
I empty out my bag/purse and give him all the receipts which he places in the relevant statement envelope
He keeps these statements for 2yrs.

To be honest, we used to make fun of him, but I have to say.. it works.
I have lost count of items purchased that have gone faulty or broken down within the guarantee period.
I just work out when it was bought, go to the folder, find the statements, and hey presto... there's the receipt inside!

My disposable income fell dramatically when I retired, from around £500 per week to around £215 per week, to help me adjust to that, I purchases a small home accounts programme to keep track of my income and expenditure.

I have created 3 accounts on it, Bank, Savings, and Rent, and I record any transactions at the time they occur. I have online access to my bank accounts and to my housing association rent account and I check all of these at least twice a week and can tell to a penny if anything is amiss. Don´t use a credit card these days but I do have a debit card which I prefer to use rather than cash.

As a pensioner, every penny counts and I cannot afford to have money go astray, so I keep my beady eye on what is going in and out of my accounts, I have to, don't know if it is just me, but as each month goes by my money seems to buy less and less :-(

Maybe what I should do, is empty all the numerous bank accounts that I keep getting e-mails about that ask me to update my details ;-)

I always check the bank statements, and I check credit card statements twice.

Once when the statement comes in and I do a quick check to see if I recognise the charges ................. if I am unsure about a charge made on OH's card (Joint CC), I ask him about it.

Then I or OH checks the available credit slips against the statement before making the actual payment to the bank.

Then he files the statement + slips, and we keep them for 7 years

We never buy anything on credit card, no matter how expensive without being certain that we have, or will have, the money in the bank to pay the bill in full when due.


Similarly, we check all calls charged to our phone ..................... local calls are free here, but long distance calls are not. It's usually OH who has made a long distance call to a number that I don't recognise.


DET ..................... our version of the £90 bouquet of flowers is $1,000 worth of T-shirts bought at London Airport on OH's card :-)

It is really fortunate that the card companies are so good about accepting one's word!

I have always checked my bank statements. I have a debit card but have never had, and don't want, a credit card.

OH has a credit card which he uses for large transactions as a form of insurance, as we can get the money back if anything goes wrong.

I have friends who never check anything and have no idea how much money they have! I couldn't live like that - it would worry me too much not knowing if I was solvent or not.

Florence I keep written accounts as well as on line and balance one against the other at the end of the month. Two reasons, I use the account book to keep a list of credit card spends so I never spend what we haven't got. The other reason is that by adding etc in the book and balancing against various statements, it keeps my brain active and the balance in the book is the available money we actually have. (Taking out what is owed to credit card)

Certainly - I check the statements against the CC/DB/Cash machine slips when the bills come in. If we needed to keep a tight rein on the spending, we could check all balances on line.

OH is still getting ribbed about the £90 bouquet of flowers he allegedly bought!

Ann having previously worked in a bank, i check everything and also keep a notebook with every transaction that goes through my bank account. This helps me to keep an up to date running total as i work on a tight budget and cant afford to make any mistakes.

i do know of people who throw away their bank statements and dont bother to check their balance.Obviously they have too much money!

Once a year i get a list of all my DDs and SOS and go through them to see if any can be deleted so its always up to date.

Once i used my debit card in a local shop and discovered 2 days later the transaction due to a processing error had gone through twice. Luckily it was only for £10.00 and not£100!!! I have phone line which is free and so ring every other day to check my balance something that everyone should do at least once a week rather than wait for a monthly statement.

Florence
in the hebrides.

As I am disabled I buy a lot on line - OH and son think I have all the time in the world to find what they want also.

I check all Statements - am like Ann - on credit card last year there were 3 small amounts totaling around £15 purchased in a Tesco - had to get road map out - it was a town .north of London. I got my money back from bank but apparently Tesco ignored their requests for info.

Goes back to early days of marriage - no bank account but a row of tin boxes labelled!!!!!

I use credit/debit cards because I prefer not to carry cash. But I keep an account of everything that goes on both and pay them off at the end of the month.

Personally I watch like a hawk for anything going out & make sure I can account for what it is.
Can´t afford to give money away.
Don´t use a credit card & rarely my debit card. Prefer to use cash so that I can keep a grip.
Luckily I live in a mainly cash society.

Bank accounts, credit card statements etc, I check through mine at the end of every month (bank) and when they are due (credit cards). I know how much I have spent and how much should be showing on the statements. I find it hard to believe that people can go on paying ,for example, two mobile phone accounts when one should have been cancelled. In the finance help part of the paper somebody was asking for help in getting back an overpayment of a bill that had been paid for a number of years. Having cancelled one mobile account they had taken out another with the same company and had been paying for both and not noticed. It would take me one month to notice.

Do you check yours?