Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

all I can say is Banks make errors all the time so if you dont manage your checkbook or something independent of online banking info you will not catch these errors should they happen

maybe youre the guy who simply looks at your balance and thinks looks ok to me

banks love that

Like BAB, I don't "balance my checkbook" in any traditional sense.

I have a spreadsheet with two main columns, "cleared" and "pending". The top number in "cleared" is my current balance. I typically only write one check per month (rent), but via online bill pay, debit card transactions, etc, there are a lot of transactions that aren't immediately charged and show up in online banking.

I go through online banking every couple of days to look at what has officially cleared and move it to the cleared column, confirm that everything lines up perfectly with what I expect, and then delete everything but the top line of "cleared" which is my balance as of all those transactions.

I like it because it automatically sums everything in the "cleared" and "pending" columns and I have a third location where it shows the sum of those debits so I know what's left at all times.

Effectively I'm "balancing my checkbook" but it's not a checkbook.

Yup.
One teacher at my school sends out numerous, obnoxious emails about gathering money together to buy powerball tickets.  Most people put $5 in, including the principal.

I abstain.

The thing that makes those offers hard to pass up is that say you have nine co-workers (I'm sure your school is bigger than that, this is just a hypothetical). If all but you go in on powerball and it hits, your nine co-workers are all going to retire into luxury while you are stuck doing the work of 10 people and training nine replacements. It might rationally be worth the $5 to avoid the possibility of that fate.

I noticed this years ago.

• Blackjack has a payout of about 99%
• Craps has a payout of about 98%
• Roulette has a payout of 94.7%
• Slot machines typically payout about 90%
• State lotteries typically payout about 62%

Based on the above, nobody should ever play slot machines let alone lotteries but they do, why?

The answer is the absurd fantasy.

• If you drop $10 on a hand of blackjack your best-case-scenario is to win $15.
• Craps is more complex but the highest payout is 30:1 so if you drop $10 on a 2/12 bet and win you get $300.
• With roulette it depends on what you are playing but the highest payout is 35:1 so if you drop $10 and win you get $350.

None of the above are life-changing or even close.

The absurd fantasy with slots/lotteries is that you can drop $10 (or less) and hit a life-changing payout. That is what keeps people playing despite vastly superior odds offered by other forms of gambling.