$16.39 - $4.85 = ??

[roxybisquaint]

You know there was a time where I actually sat down with checkbook and bank statement once a month to reconcile my measely checking account. If I was off by $1.23, I'd actually go back through, recalculate all my checks and deposits and withdrawals and figure out where I'd screwed up. I had an obsessive need to make sure the bottom line in my checkbook was accurate and also that I'd made the mistake and not the bank. Thank God those days are over.

I don't have to care about $1.23 anymore (can you even imagine?) and I haven't kept up a checkbook in years. There's just no need. All my finances are online through the bank. I very rarely even write checks (usually just when some neighborhood kid comes around selling fundraiser stuff). I don't get receipts at the bank machine. I never use a debit card (I stick everything on a credit card and pay it at the end of the month). I don't bother to track my money at all. When it's time to pay bills, I log in and see what I've got. And thanks to overdraft protection, I don't even have to forecast ahead to make sure there will be enough money in checking for when bills are scheduled to be paid. If there's not enough, the bank automatically transfers it over from savings. Simple.

Or maybe it's too simple. Maybe this is why I suck at math now.

Comments

[cisaac.livejournal.com]

I'm completely with you on this. I write one check a month -- for rent. Everything is automatically deducted from my checking account for me.

Before long we'll just be informed 'you are now eligible for a nicer car, please click here to upgrade -- click cancel to save your upgrade points to add nicer carpeting to your bedroom instead'.

And then Skynet is born and we're all fucked.

[the-narration.livejournal.com]

Another one here who only uses checks anymore for rent. And I haven't used the balance ledger in my checkbook for years, not when the bank's website can give me my up-to-date balance. I've lived pretty close to the edge at times, but for the most part I'm not so poor that I need to watch every dollar I spend.

Graphing calculators were spoiling me for doing math by hand as far back as high school, but I still do the odd bit of number crunching in my head or on paper (and no, not just totalling attack and damage rolls in RPGs) so I like to think I haven't completely lost the knack.

....I think I might have forgotten how to do calculus, tho.