I glance at account balances about once a week just out of habit. More than that requires brain power that I either lack or am too lazy to use unless I plan ahead.
Same. I keep a spreadsheet that I update once a month with assets, liabilities and net worth. Takes me about 5mins and is a good check to detect unexpected spending or trends.
I do this. Sometimes I add the info the same day, or just do it all on the weekend. Probably takes 10 minutes a week. I can then take that info and compare to any budgets or predictions and see where things are going right or wrong.
I’ve had everything balance down to the penny for 20 years now. If you have some attention to detail and make it a habit, it’s not really that difficult or time consuming.
It’s also kind of like paying cash. It makes you more aware of what you are spending.
I've found it's not worth it. What I've had be most impactful is just to look at all the transactions on my accounts every paycheck. I notice subscriptions to cancel, spending I want to change.
I don't think looking at sums is actually much more powerful than looking at items. The count carries a weight. There's also no chance of analysis paralysis, slicing and showing things a hundred ways to avoid the heart of the matter. It's just you and the transactions. It leads to less understanding but better decisions.
I keep two accounts for my payroll deposits... one which is my day to day usage (fuel, food, entertainment, etc) and the other where bills get paid from. I also keep my large bills and credit cards not autopay. So I have to actually go in at least once a month to pay the mortgage, car payments, and pay off CC. It helps for awareness, but not actively tracking sometimes makes it surprising how much gets spent in a month.
I've tried to do this for years but never been able to figure out how it works in practice. My wife and I have settled on just looking at our accounts every week and seeing that we have enough buffer, but I really feel like there is some skill that is missing.
Maybe I'm unusually anal retentive about this, but I have every bank account, PayPal, Venmo, both credit cards, every brokerage, 401(k), HSA, IRA, mortgage, everything... in Quicken, which I check every single day. 1. Start Quicken, 2. Hit Update, 3. Get Coffee, 4. Review everything in boldface to make sure it's not a surprise.
I have the next month worth of bills and paychecks "below the line" as future transactions, so not only can know what's in my checking account today, but I know exactly, to the penny what will be in my checking account on 18-Feb.
I've in the past found credit card fraud/mistakes within a day of being charged, and have fixed them quickly, before even my next paper statement was printed.
Some friends I know don't have any idea how much is in any of their accounts outside of occasionally seeing a number on an ATM receipt. They might have a budget, but no idea how much all their monthly charges add up to in reality. And yea, they always seem to be forgetting about some subscription or charge. I couldn't live like that--not for me.
Ok, technically I don't keep track of it in my head, but in my pocket. I start with a given amount of Euros in my pocket. Each purchase reduces that amount. If I want to check my current balance I reach into my pocket and see how much money is left. Checking this against the current date gives me a rough idea if I'm over- or under-budget.
Me? Perhaps 10 total between certificates of deposits, IRAs, my work 401k, a credit card, and some savings accounts, along with my regular "main" checking account.
It is really invaluable to figure out where I'm wasting money and can improve my spending habits.
I don't have a budget in traditional sense (Excel table with spending categories and amounts allocated for each, with regularly updated actual spent amounts). I just look at the balance of my checking account when I get the statement. If it goes down month over month, I know I need to cut spending.
Everything else is automated: scheduled transfers to savings, recurring mortgage payments, autopay for credit cards, etc.
I honestly don't do much with the data, in fact I rarely look at it. I do use it to determine sane budgets for various categories of my life, and I sum the entries every few days so I can tell at a glance how close I am to exhausting those budgets. I also find that there's a psychological benefit--when I have to track every purchase I spend less money.
I spend considerably less than an hour a week making these entries, perhaps around 15 minutes. If I was interested in having a more nuanced view of my finances with graphs, &c I'd probably leverage software to save me time.
I used to like auto-synching with accounts, but I found this encouraged a pattern where I would only look at my budget periodically, long after the information would have been useful (e.g. in the moment of asking whether I should make a purchase).
Instead, I've switched to software that requires me to manually input each transaction (firefly-iii with lychnos, a custom front-end I wrote). This keeps me aware of the budgets since I get in the habit of looking at them each time I make a purchase and record it.
I use a service like Mint.com. I check it about once a month. That may well be too often, and a sign that my automation and budget aren't fully mature; once a quarter would be more ideal.
A continuously-updated Mint dashboard? If I needed to micromanage my money that closely it would be a sign of trouble. And it would certainly be stressful.
Most of the money-management advice I trust emphasizes the role of automation. If your budgeting system requires constant mindfulness it's not working well.
I only do it every few days but pretty much the same. I find it's too easy to lose track of how much I've been spending, so by doing it manually I always notice before it becomes a problem. It also helps me save because I notice right away if I get charged for a subscription I'm not using and I can cancel it.
I do a similar thing on a monthly basis; track how much is going into savings/investments as opposed to expenses, and after a few months you can start talking about average savings/investments. Trying to track expenses is so tedious and prone to one-offs, I realized it's much easier to just see how much goes into accounts I never withdraw from.
Not an answer to your question, but rather an observation regarding budgeting:
I daily document my account balance to the penny, which unexpectedly acts (for me) as a brake on superfluous spending.
Simply the act of penny-wise documentation compels the need to be aware of spending. Having merely a spreadsheet and a budget app, that framework encouraged me to compare my current day balance with the previous month's day, and provided a visual reward when my balance was higher.
In sum, maintaining granular data about my account led to good things.
I made an app for myself to track every transaction, but I stopped after realising that I don't really need to. I am quite frugal so I simply don't spend enough that I feel I need to know every little detail.
I might check the total every now and then out of interest. I also don't have any investments or a lot of recurring things.
I track everything as only three accounts regardless of where they are. Debit, Savings, Investments. Credit charges are just uncleared debit charges until I pay the bill.
I use tags to categorize recurring charges and on the 1st of the month I will sit down and pre-enter all of last month's recurring charges into the next month, as well as check the statement to make sure that last month's were really what I expected them to be.
I enter new charges on the day that they happen. It's 5 minutes a day instead of an hr or three at the end of the month.
What I end up with is that I know where everything has been going, and I have a good forecast for where it's going to go in the near future. If I need to answer a question like 'how much of a rent hike can I tolerate' or 'how much car can I afford' I have a good basis for deciding it. I also have a single 'available spending money' number that I can refer to if I need to, but honestly im a casual minimalist and not buying things is a great way to keep your finances afloat with minimal stress.
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