I do not keep a check register. I used to when I first got a checkbook when I was 18, but then I figured, Why bother? because I could always get to my account information online. Also I write checks very rarely.
Anyway, I've found check registers less and less useful as I have grown older because I track my accounts online. Tracking my accounts online, of course, depends on prompt updates to my accounts whenever money goes in or out.
Herein lies my problem. I had no trouble with prompt transaction posting and, thus, online account tracking when I lived in Massachusetts and patronized multinational banks.
Now that I've switched to a Vermont-based credit union, I'm having difficulties. About the only thing that posts promptly are automatic deposits, like my paychecks, and automatic withdrawals, like my auto insurance and auto loan payments. Everything else — that means purchases on my debit card and transfers to/from Paypal, both of which make up the bulk of my account activity — takes days to post. For example, Saturday's debits typically don't register until Tuesday. NOT HELPFUL. The lag time in transaction posting certainly makes it easier to overdraw my account.
Anyway, I called the credit union today to see if cash withdrawals from ATMs would post more promptly than debit card purchases. Answer: No. Apparently there is no way to achieve prompter posting of my transactions until APRIL 2013, when the credit union upgrades its software.
The person I talked to at the credit union told me to keep a check register and record all my transactions in it. This would not work because I have automatic withdrawals of varying amounts on varying days and automatic deposits of varying amounts on varying days. Furthermore, NO. It is not my job to go back to the 19th century to accommodate my credit union. It is the credit union's job to haul its ass into the 21st century to accommodate me and the other customers.
I'm very happy with One Credit Union for giving me a small auto loan with a low interest rate and for not charging overdraft fees on debits [only for checks]. However, I am really infuriated with them for their lack of updated technology. Do they still think people are banking in person with actual bills or something???
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My dad, a retired high school math and science teacher, used to lament the fact that kids these days refuse to learn how to balance a checkbook (he was lamenting this ten or fifteen years ago, even, when phone banking was popular and online banking just starting). They’d always tell him, “I can just get my balance at the ATM.” He’d reply that the ATM balance didn’t reflect any pending transactions, and they’d better get used to overdraft fees if that’s how they planned to do it.
Today, though, is a different matter. I agree that your bank should be updated. Right now, the only things that don’t post immediately to our account are gas purchases (why it takes 3 days for a gas pump transaction to show, I don’t know) and checks. The check issue is why we started paying our rent first by cashier check, and now by the bank’s online bill pay. Our landlords would take almost a month to cash the check. We don’t even get paper statements in the mail anymore.