How often do u check ur Bank & Retirement account balances?

[Rob Base 2.0]

Since I retired from the military and my job is boring, I started checking my balances monthly (I think also since the markets are doing relatively well too). I do a sheet every month tracking retirement. I am thinking about doing it every 2 weeks......... I check the bank balances probably once a week........I used to check retirement accounts like every 5 months or so.......

How often do u check ur various account balances?

[Deleted]

Daily, Mint pulls it all back for me in 30 seconds.

[tallguy]

Whenever I think they may have hit an all-time high.  I like to keep track of all-time highs so I can go back and look over time.  Other than that, I have a good enough idea anyway of what they are, but as long as I am on the computer anyway....     

[TheHaitian]

Daily - Quicken

[msventoux]

Bank and credit cards-at least once a week.
Retirement accounts-at least once a month.

[lynnerself]

Bank balance, about once a week.
Credit cards about twice a month, just to make sure there is enough in checking account to make the auto pay.
Retirement account, once a quarter along with net worth.
(Actually DH does most of this, I rarely look at stuff.)

[giramomma]

Bank balance 1-2x a month.

But, my take home has increased about 300/month total over the past 13 years. After about 3ish years, it was pretty easy to memorize spending patterns. We don't really spend a ton of money..so it's easy to remember "Oh, we had a big Costco run this month. I need to limit target to needs." We can eat out about twice a month. That's another number that's easy to keep track of.

I also only get paid once a month...at the beginning...for my day job. That's the money we use to pay our monthly bills with. So it's not like we have to manage multiple paychecks coming in on different dates. We get the lump sum and have to make it last.

Retirement...once a quarter.

When my job was boring I tried listening to books on tape. Or I'd work faster so I could leave early..or I worked my second job more.

[Deleted]

Pretty much daily since nearly all my accounts are tracked in one login.  Once a month I put everything in the net worth tracker. 

[Deleted]

milee may not remember this, but she reamed me for pretty much checking my bank and credit card accounts every day.  I don't keep extra $$$ in the bank account, but I treat my CC accounts sort of like check registers.  I know exactly how much I owe and for what on my CC every day.  I actually pay them off the day the new statement posts.

It is just my style.  Most people use this month's money to pay off last month's credit card bills.  Although I have never really figured out how to us YNAB, I believe you should pay it out of last month's money.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Look at the actual bank accounts? Twice per month or so.
I use YNAB and i can see what the balance is supposed to be on there. (I don't link YNAB to anything though, so it's not technically a real "look". ) I balance the checking accounts twice per month. I balance my credit cards that I treat as debit cards every Thursday and pay the balance in full each Thursday.

Retirement accounts, I glance at the quarterly statements that are mailed to me for the 403b s we have. We get annual statements for our pensions. All of it is so low that I just want to cry so I don't look at them too long.

[milee]

Jul 30, 2017 22:51:38 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

milee may not remember this, but she reamed me for pretty much checking my bank and credit card accounts every day.  I don't keep extra $$$ in the bank account, but I treat my CC accounts sort of like check registers.  

You're right, I don't remember reaming you... I remember you posting about checking all accounts every day including transferring money to pay the cc daily and me replying that you sounded very stressed and anxious about the system.  I noted that checking things and transferring things daily might not be helpful and might actually be making your feelings about money stress worse, that even if there was an error or other issue, checking things weekly would still allow you time to correct the error/issue but also might reduce some of your anxiety.  

Very similar to the exchange we had recently in your post about the insurance issue you're having about the PT being erroneously denied.  It's a good thing to make sure you reply to issues in a timely way and regularly monitor accounts.  It becomes a problem and crosses over into unhelpful territory when you expend a lot of effort on things that aren't needed and are only serving to further increase your stress and anxiety. 

[hoops902]

I look at my bank account weekly, retirement accounts somewhere between weekly and monthly whenever I happen to think about it.

[Deleted]

When the market is going up I check brokerage accounts daily!   I always record end-of-month values, though.  It helps to put things into perspective when the market tanks- I can see how previous markets eventually recovered.

I look at the checking account less often- just when I expect my two pensions to be deposited the last day of the month, when I expect SS to be deposited and sometimes to see if a check cleared.  Every couple of months I check the bank balance vs. mine  If the difference is less than $50 I don't even try to figure it out- I just make an adjustment to true it up.

[ken a.k.a OMK]

Retirement accounts daily but I don't let the swings bother me. Today's loss will be tomorrows gain in many cases. Decisions are made over a longer term if my accounts lag the market.

[Value Buy]

I check the stock and fund numbers daily. It is easy to load them on a spread sheet on a number of sites which automatically updates them, and I also add stocks that I am just watching because I might buy some
Funds every evening after re-balancing by funds.

Wife checks banking and credit cards accounts about twice a week just to see no fraud occurring.

[Anne_in_VA]

Bank accounts I check every couple of days.  Investments every quarter.

[Anne_in_VA]

Double post

[Deleted]

I kind of miss the pre-internet days when it comes to investments and you just got the quarterly statements in the mail.  Sometimes I'd toss those into a pile and not check them for a year or more. 

It's too easy now.  My username and password are stored in Firefox, so it is literally just two mouse clicks to check.  I spent 50X as long just writing this post as it takes me to check my account balances. 

[thyme4change]

As the market goes up - often.

When the market goes down - rarely.

[Plain Old Petunia]

Bank and credit accounts I try to check every day, and note activity in my planner.

Investments just once a month, when I do my net worth.

[Tiny]

I check checking accounts once a week (there's ALWAYS something happening each week:  auto push/pulls, payroll, re-imbursements, or mortgages/bills to pay).  I like to make sure I have the right amount of $$ in my non-interest bearing checking accounts. 

I check/review/change retirement accounts every 3 months (It could be every 6 months July/December - when I get a raise and then year end) 

I don't really feel the need to watch my retirement numbers go up and down on a daily/weekly basis - since I can't do anything about it (not invest or invest more)... all the 'feeds' to my retirement accounts are automated - and based on me getting paid (so 'future' money).   

The small amounts that I skim off my checking accounts/windfalls and move to investing every 3 months isn't enough to loose sleep over "buying at the wrong time".

I took a month off - from checking my checking accounts - and it got messy... so I'm back to reviewing once a week.

 

[TheOtherMe]

Check it daily during the week. 

[Rob Base 2.0]

Ya'll trust mint and other websites with your investment accounts passwords?

[Blonde Granny]

I review my bank checking & 2 savings accounts daily. I also review my CC account for charges and balances on a daily basis. My brokerage account @ Ameritrade is also checked daily (it just makes me feel better even though the market is closed on Saturday & Sunday.) I do however receive dividend and interest deposits sometimes on the weekend.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Jul 31, 2017 15:56:03 GMT -5 Rob Base 2.0 said:

Ya'll trust mint and other websites with your investment accounts passwords?

No, but I cannot decide if that is paranoid or smart.

[msventoux]

Jul 31, 2017 16:20:43 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

Jul 31, 2017 15:56:03 GMT -5 Rob Base 2.0 said:

Ya'll trust mint and other websites with your investment accounts passwords?

No, but I cannot decide if that is paranoid or smart.

I'll admit I may be paranoid, but I can't bring myself to give up my log in info to other sites. I have enough trouble trusting a password keeper on my phone.

I actually don't trust it and have cryptic hints listed as to what the passwords are, but not the passwords themselves. Sometimes the hints are cryptic enough I can't remember what I was getting at for little used sites and have to reset the passwords.

[MN-Investor]

I check my checking accounts and credit card sites at least once a week, maybe twice.

I update my portfolio spreadsheet each weekend and each month end.

[Deleted]

I don't have my passwords in to pull all my investments. I just have the holdings all manually entered with Vanguard and it shows balances based on current price. Once a month I have to update the 401K share numbers because that's being constantly added to, but things like the other IRAs at Fidelity and ESAs at Schwab don't change much. Basically just during the short and long term distributions once a year.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

I check my bank accounts to make sure payments have been made.  Once everything I need to pay clears, I really don't pay attention to the account until I check for my deposits.

Investment accounts get checked every couple weeks.