How often do you "look" at your money?

[april47]

I find that with the internet and bank websites that I "look" at my money every day and sometimes more when I am waiting for a deposit or withdrawel. Fidelity has a website you can look at your 401 and just about every place has a website nowadays. How often do you "look" at your money? Am I obsesive?

[Deleted]

Mar 20, 2011 7:36:05 GMT -5 april47 said:

I find that with the internet and bank websites that I "look" at my money every day and sometimes more when I am waiting for a deposit or withdrawel. Fidelity has a website you can look at your 401 and just about every place has a website nowadays. How often do you "look" at your money? Am I obsesive?

If you are obsessive, so am I.

I check my bank account twice a day usually :
- morning to check what deposits/withdawals to see what was processed (no longer on hold)
- evening to check what was charged during the day

Credit card accounts
- usually just once/twice a month .

401K/Roth Ira accounts
- only when we make deposits; so once a week

[Deleted]

I check my checking account most days - just to make sure my budget spreadsheet is squared away and I didn't accidentally miss something. (Then I get compulsive about debit card transactions at restaurants because they will frequently have the wrong total in the queue before adding the correct tip when it is finalized)

I look at my savings account and 401k much less frequently. I can see from my checking account and pay stub that the money has gone in, so I try not to obsess about what it does once it gets there.

[Deleted]

This message has been deleted.

[qofcc]

Every other week around pay day.

[zibazinski]

I check daily because the bank messed up once big time so now I'm paranoid. The big stuff like IRA and my trust money, I pay a half per cent and let Schwab manage it. Too big of a headache for me to do plus I did some dumb stuff that will be hard to recover from. Because I was afraidf to make a mistake, I did nothing, which was even worse!!!!

[whispering17]

I have 2 credit unions and check them daily. I check my 401k twice a week. (at least)

[Regis]

Daily. Apparently, I'm obsessive, too.

[RoadToRiches]

Funny. I always talk about this with my buddy that is doing debt payoff thing with me. I look at my bank account many times a day. Check my 401k daily, even though I stopped contributions to put money towards debt. I know I know. It works for me like that though and that's what I decided to do.

I have Quicken setup on my computer that is identical to my online bank register. I don't need to input info in there often because I am on cash system. But I have all my bill reminders setup in Quicken, so I use it pretty much to play around with different scenarios. Plus, it keeps me in check.

I also have spreadsheet setup with all my bill and pretty much use it as my budget. I look at this thing MANY times a day. Mostly because I have all my payments mapped out for entire year. I look at it to motivate me. For example, March 15th was my kick off to debt payoff and one of the big payments I had scheduled was for high APR card. I made $1700 payment on it and it just pumps me up to see that in April 15th, after making $900 payment, I will be DONE with that card. It's huge step for me, considering I been paying minimum payments on that card for over 3 years. Now, 2 payments and it's done.

It's like a game for me. How fast I can delete a card from my spreadsheet. Ultimate goal is to have all of the cards gone out of my spreadsheet. I then have another sheet setup with all my current living expenses that I have budgeted but WITHOUT credit cards. On the bottom of each pay period I have a number that shows how much money I will have left from each paycheck. That number motivates me even more when I look at it. It allows me to see how awesome it will be next year and how free I will be.

In-fact, I just looked at my spreadsheet now lol.. I am pretty sure I will look at it again today many many times.

[parker1b2]

I usually check my bank account once a day, just to make sure everything is correct and I didn't miss something. My 401/IRAs and investment accounts I check around once a week.

[alabamagal]

Bank account daily. I have found some problems and got them corrected immediately. I use mint.com to track expenses, but they seem to be about a day behind. I look at mint maybe 2-3 times per week to make sure all budget items are correct.

[Gardening Grandma]

Pretty much daily. Each morning, with my coffee, I pull up Quicken, download all accounts and enter categories for any receipts that DH has left by the computer. Two or three times a month, I'll pull up a Quicken spending report and enter the data on my budget spreadsheet to see how we are doing there. At the end of the month, I print out the spreadsheet and give it to DH for our "How Did We Do This Month?" discussion.

[TheOtherMe]

Daily for banks and credit cards. I like knowing exactly where I stand with the budget and what still needs to clear.

[midjd]

I check Mint daily; it covers checking/savings, CCs, investments, and pretty much everything "money"-related I have. I only go to the bank websites to pay bills or resolve some discrepancy, maybe twice a month.

[daisylu]

bank/credit union daily(at least once)

CC weekly

401 monthly

[MN-Investor]

I update Quicken every weekday morning with changes from the bank, credit union, and credit card. It only takes a few moments and I'm trying to be better this year about categorizing amounts.

Every Saturday morning I'll take 15 minutes to update my investment spreadsheet, but I overwrite each week's values until month end. Month end amounts remain within the spreadsheet for comparison purposes.

My DH loves looking at his 401(k) balance almost every day, but weekly is plenty often for me.

[azphx1972]

I open Quicken whenever I spend money so that I can record my spending, so that's usually daily. I'll go online every week or two to reconcile my accounts. 401k & ROTH IRA usually once or twice a month.

[Sum Dum Gai]

My wife pays all the bills and whatnot, so I only check the bank accounts every 3-6 months. I check the retirement balances about once a month.

[SVT]

I look at my mint.com account a few times a day. I think it is a little obsessive. At least I admit I have a problem...

LOL

[lynnerself]

I guess we are way outside the norm for this message board.
We check the checking account 2 or 3 times a month, just before we know that the big withdrawals (mortgage and Roth IRAs) are coming out and before paying the credit cards off each month. Just to make sure there is enough to cover them.
Retirement account get looked at quarterly when we receive statements.
Credit card statements, once a month before paying them.

[dividend]

I look at my spreadsheet daily, mostly when I'm entering receipts. It's set up to give me "real-time" totals like CC/checking/savings balances if I accurately enter all my spending. I look at my bank account website on twice a month on payday (to double check direct deposit amounts). I look at my CC websites on the first of each month, when I do a full reconcile with my spreadsheets and pay all the CCs. I also check my IRA balances and my car's blue book value, to get an accurate monthly net worth number.

[cytoglycerine]

Mar 20, 2011 7:36:05 GMT -5 april47 said:

How often do you "look" at your money? Am I obsesive?

I look at my money so often I think I might actually have OCD - especially when it comes to my investments...I'm the type that enjoys - nay, CRAVES - watching every single tick of the trading day.


But then again, I really don't have anything else to do with my time (nor do I have much energy to do anything other than sit and watch the market lol)

[jd2005]

I must be obsessed.

I check my checking and savings at least once a day; my 401k daily (if you count using mint.com); my credit card once a day; and I obsess over my budget, debt repayment, and net worth spreadsheets daily, even though that last one doesn't change/get updated but once a month.

[resolution]

I check my bank balance every time I get a bill in the mail. I go on-line to pay the bill and look at balances. It averages once a week. I also check DH's paycheck deposit at that time. He gives me the bank receipt and I check it against the deposit to make sure it was deposited correctly. We have had problems in the past with the bank putting his deposit into his brother's account and vice versa.

[souldoubt]

Daily. I track my checking/savings accounts and investments in excel. I usually only update my investment accounts after I make a contribution so 2-3 times a month. As far as the checking/savings go I'm sure I over do it but I like knowing what my bank balance is, actual balance (bank less outstanding charges like tips or charges yet to hit) and build out for a month or so in advance so I know what my balance will be around at that point.

[The J]

I check my bank accounts and primary credit card daily. Once a month I do a networth update, so then I look at all the accounts.

[jkapp]

Mar 20, 2011 7:36:05 GMT -5 april47 said:

I find that with the internet and bank websites that I "look" at my money every day and sometimes more when I am waiting for a deposit or withdrawel. Fidelity has a website you can look at your 401 and just about every place has a website nowadays. How often do you "look" at your money? Am I obsesive?

At the end of each month to update my spreadsheets...I like to keep my own reporting on my finances/investments. My checking account I will look at a couple times a week to do my balancing (checking off what's cleared).

[Urban Chicago]

I use mint, and check it every day. I "have" to check the actual bank site at least weekly since our current budget requires a weekly transfer between accounts.