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Picking up my daughter from a sleepover the other day, I was chatting with her friend's mom. She mentioned she was going to spend the afternoon balancing her checkbook and paying bills. She lamented that she should be outside enjoying the day, but she desperately needed to get up to date with her bills. I told her that I have as many bills as possible debited electronically, I never balance my checkbook, and I spend very little time each month on such mundane tasks. 
 
She looked at me with an expression of bewilderment, in mild shock at the thought of such loose control. She explained that electronic debits scared her, even for utility bills. And an unbalanced checkbook? Unthinkable. Not part of her reality.
 
I imagined her wearing blinders, the kind they put on horses so they only see straight ahead. Unwilling and unable to consider operating in any way other than her present one.
 
I used to be a checkbook balancer. For nearly 20 years I'd performed the monthly ritual, balancing to the penny.  It was not a horrible task, but it wasn't looked forward to either. It was time spent with very little return. I think over that time frame I maybe caught one small bank error. At most, a twenty dollar return for those invested hours. Hours I could have spent riding my bike, reading a book, quaffing a beer with a friend. 
 
But no, I spent those hours tracking down pennies. Checkbook balancing was ingrained in me by my parents, as powerful as the anti-littering message. I was as the mom mentioned above-other options simply didn't exist. I was a checkbook balancer and a check writer.
 
And then online banking came on the scene and changed everything. Suddenly, I could see my account balance in real time. Why manually reconcile now? With a few clicks I've got the same access as a teller at the bank. Screw balancing. Sign up the mortgage, the gas bill, the electric bill, every bill possible for electronic debit, and get on with life. No more looking for penny discrepencies. No more stamps, envelopes, and writing transactions into a little book. Electronic banking and paying at the pump-2 wonders of the modern world.
 
This is not to say you can stop paying attention. Pay attention. Know what you are spending. But don't waste your time putting little marks in your checkbook register and adding up pennies. If you are still balancing your checkbook, consider objectively whether it is worth the time invested.
 
I'll never go back.