One Bright Spot

I was paying bills and balancing the check book and feeling generally broke, and then I discovered that this was the second month in a row that the bank thought we had $100 more than I thought we had. I decided to believe them.

I consider myself pretty much in the middle on financial on-top-of-things-ness. I do balance the check book every month, though not always as soon as my statement gets here. But there was no way I was going to track down where that extra $100 actually came from.

There were a few months in a row when the balance was off by $20 in one direction and 2 cents in the other direction. (Some people would describe that as being off by $19.98, but I don't.) Eventually, I just changed my balance to match the bank.

My approach is to write down my results on the statement each month. If they're off from the bank, I try a couple times at least. Then I wait to see if it's the same the next month.

I suppose if it were really off in the bank's favor, I would try harder. But for now, though I would usually wait longer than two months, I think I'm taking the hundred bucks.

How do you make your balance work?