Member-only story
For many years, and I mean more years than some readers have been living, I have saved my receipts and have insisted that my wife do the same.
Prior to being married, I made little money, just around twenty grand per year, and had even littler expenses and kept track of how much was in my bank account down to the very penny.
If I charged $22.15 at a restaurant while utilizing our bank debit card (which I always use as “credit”), I would write -22.15 in the checkbook, subtract the amount from what was in the account, and write the updated amount.
I know; that sounds crazy.
My better half and I have been married and sharing a checking account since June of 1996, and for years I would collect all of her receipts and enter them in our checkbook ledger doing the same thing.
About seven or eight years ago, I mentioned this to my best friend while sharing some beers, who advised me how nuts I am for doing that. Since that time, we only write the information about the checks that we write in the ledger, whether it is $25 for our daughter’s weekly music lesson or $3,000 for our property tax bill payable next month.
As I have paid more and more bills online over the years, those checks go a lot further than they used to and we do not write the information in very often. Perhaps just a few…
