Sunday, September 12, 2010

Question for grownups

Is "balancing a chequebook" an actual task? I always thought it was just an expression for making sure you don't run out of money, but this old For Better Or For Worse strip makes it sound like it's an actual thing you have to do. (Also, why is Elly saying "check" instead of "cheque"?)

What does it mean? Is it something I should know how to do or is it now obsolete? I'm not unfamiliar with using cheques (some of my bills still had to be paid by cheque for various reasons when I was first starting out, my old landlord had me pay rent by cheque), but it never...occurred to me, I suppose, to do any actual task that could be described as balancing one's chequebook.

10 comments:

M@ said...

I always wondered this too. I've never done it, myself.

As for the spelling of "check", it's probably because the comic was syndicated in the USA. You spell the way your biggest market expects you to, I suppose.

laura k said...

OK kiddies, I guess it's up to me. Before there was online banking and before there was money-management software (or computers) for personal use, balancing a checkbook was a task one did each month. (Or I should say, was a task one was supposed to do.)

The bank sent you your cancelled checks, and a statement, and you had to "balance" them to make sure there were no errors, that the amount you showed in your checkbook was the amount the bank said you had and visa versa.

I'm using the US spelling, because in the days when I balanced a checkbook, that's how I spelled it.

Do you want details? How it was done?

impudent strumpet said...

So balancing the chequebook (unless it's different for checkbooks) is just verifying your bank statement? Or is there something more to it? Because it's always been presented culturally as this Great Big Thing and that just...doesn't sound like such a big deal.

laura k said...

Chequebooks and checkbooks are the exact same thing. One is a US spelling, the other is a Canadian spelling. The only difference is spelling.

Balancing a checkbook was not a Great Big Thing but it was a big PITA. Not just verifying the statement.

Here's what you did. Next comment, brb.

laura k said...

First you compared your checkbook to the statement, and put a "check mark" (tick to some) beside every check that had been cashed.

Then you took the balance shown on the statement. You only saw the bank's version of that balance once per month, as opposed to online banking where you can see it all the time, anytime.

Then you added to that "balance shown" any deposits made after the date the statement closed.

Then you added up all the outstanding checks - any checks you had written that had not yet been cancelled.

Then you substracted the (total of those outstanding checks) from the (balance + deposit). I'm using ( )s here as they are used in a math equation.

The result of that subtraction was supposed to equal the amount shown on the statement. When it did, you were happy, put away your checkbook and went on with your day. When it did not, you had to comb through the checkbook line by line and find what went wrong.

An old outstanding check may have done it, and you'd be annoyed that so-and-so hadn't cashed your check yet. Or you could have made a subtraction or addition error. If you added instead of subtracting, or subtracted instead of adding, it could really mess you up - you could end up bouncing a check.

This balancing task helped you start each month knowing how much money you actually had.

It was a HUGE timesaver when you no longer had to do this.

My mom still uses a checkbook and still balances it, even though she owns a computer. I try to talk her into online banking but she is too afraid to give up this labourious task that she's been doing all her adult life.

Whew! Any questions? :)

impudent strumpet said...

So basically you're looking at all your little pieces of paper and doing math to calculate how much money is in your account because the bank won't do it for you?

It sounds to me like keeping track of all the pieces of paper would be harder work than actually doing the arithmetic.

laura k said...

All the papers come with the statement. They used to send actual cancelled checks. At some point they started sending a paper with tiny images of the all the checks, maybe 8 or 10 on a page.

So all you would need is what the bank sent you, plus your checkbook.

It wasn't difficult, but it was tedious.

When I was a kid, if my mother was really stuck trying to find an error, she would ask for my help. Later if was stuck, I would ask Allan to look at it with me.

Not a chore I miss.

impudent strumpet said...

That actually sounds like the sort of work that would be very well suited to a child who knows their arithmetic and takes Grownup Things very seriously.

laura k said...

You're right, as long as it was appropriate for the child to see how much money was in the account. You don't want a child to worry about money before she has to.

impudent strumpet said...

John and Ellie in FBOFW should have Michael help them with the chequebook! They've already established that he doesn't apply himself well in school because he doesn't grok the importance of the material, so if they had him help out here he's see reading and arithmetic being applied IRL for grownup things and see that he actually has the skills to do grownup things!

Except that this is all 30 years old. And fictional.