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Posi, he's just this guy, ya know.
 
2nd-Oct-2009 09:00 am
furry cat
Conundrum :

Carrying around a checkbook to keep track of all your debit card purchases is a pain, and thus something likely to be skipped, leading to inaccurate balances.

Experiment :

Print a business card with all the numbers from $500 to $5 counting down by 5's. Then you round your balance DOWN to the nearest 5, and cross out all numbers greater than that. Then when you buy something you round UP to the nearest 5 and cross out that many more numbers on the card. This gives you a balance estimate that will always be at least a little bit more than you really have in the account, you can get a new card whenever you deposit, or balance your checkbook. On the back are several lines to quickly note the actual price if you wish.

I have these coming in the mail, figured it might be worth a try so I made up a test batch, and I'm expecting them in the mail in a week or two. If anyone wants a couple of them to try as well, let me know, I'm getting 250 of these.


Comments 
2nd-Oct-2009 02:46 pm (UTC)
[info]nrasser
Remember those little credit-card-size calculators that were in so much vogue back in the 80s?

Where is the credit-card-size electronic checkbook ledger?? In these days of glass-filled plastics and high-rel flexible circuits, I'd say building one that would survive would be a slam dunk...and the thing could even automatically date stamp and store every entry you put in and download it all to your Quicken/whatever later or just store every damn entry for life with about 4gb of flash onboard.

Now there's a gadget I'd buy!
2nd-Oct-2009 03:01 pm (UTC)
[info]posicat
I had one of those, they worked nicely until you sat down and bent them in half.

I figure pretty soon, something like the Iphone will come out that's got about the same footprint as a credit card, that would be ideal for what I want, but in this case, this is quick, easy, and cheap.

2nd-Oct-2009 03:18 pm (UTC)
[info]nrasser
I do like the simplicity of that card and I think it'll work just dandy, as long as you carry some sort of writing utensil and don't mind doing subtractive math in your head. :)

For rev 2, consider putting the numbers in vertical columns that begin with landmark numbers. It'll be easier to do those quick subtractive computations. ^^
2nd-Oct-2009 04:57 pm (UTC)
[info]wolfbrotherjoe
Hrm... that's a neat idea...

Of course, I'd just print out my own in about five minutes... but still...

And now I'm pondering its utility for a variety of other applications. Like gaming counters...
2nd-Oct-2009 05:14 pm (UTC)
[info]posicat
I was going to print my own, but through Vistaprint I get 250 for like $10. The advantage is:

- Not inkjet printed, it won't bleed when it's in my sweaty pocket.
- Business card card stock to further resist deterioration.
- I can print both sides easily.
- Their online card creator was fun to play with.
- My printer requires TLC before it prints well because it's old and the heads clog.
2nd-Oct-2009 05:17 pm (UTC)
[info]wolfbrotherjoe
*facepalms* Oh, right. We have all that stuff cause we do art prints.
2nd-Oct-2009 05:23 pm (UTC)
[info]anubititus
The idea should work! It's actually very similar to the first system for sending money via mail. By American Express, if I recall my history.

Essentially they had a card with amounts of money on it, arranged just like that, and they would tear off/punch out, all amounts HIGHER than the purchased balance.
2nd-Oct-2009 06:00 pm (UTC)
[info]posicat
Yeah, it's not a new idea, store promotions cards do that kind of thing as well, punch out the dot and when you punch 10 you get a free meal. I figured I could carry it with my card and it'd be right there after I sign the recipt so I can check off the extra $'s
8th-Oct-2009 01:02 am (UTC) - can get messy though
Anonymous
what about returns?
8th-Oct-2009 01:31 am (UTC) - I dig
Anonymous
Awesome idea. I made my own template based on this. I also did one with numbers counting up, instead of down. Not sure which one I like better yet.

Thanks!
8th-Oct-2009 01:13 pm (UTC) - dumb question
Anonymous
I supposed this is obvious but since I think this is a neat idea, I just want to make sure. Why do you start with $500? I assume this is the beginning balance in the debit card account. However my debit card is for my regular checking account, where my paycheck is deposited. So to use this I imagine I'd need to have the highest amount in the thousands which would really make it less useful.

Do the users of this have a separate debit account just for cash withdrawals and small purchases?

Thanks for any help.

mh
8th-Oct-2009 02:39 pm (UTC) - Re: dumb question
[info]posicat
I fit as many numbers as I could on the card, that ended up being 550, but it looked too cluttered, so I cut it down to 500.

Say you have $228 in your account (or for that matter, you're budgeting $228 for a specific event, but have $100,000 in your account) you scratch out any number greater than the $225 you've budgeted, you cros

This is for my pocket money, not my household budget. I'm not likely going to be spending more than 100 in any one place, more likely to be 20-30 on most transactions, so 500 is most likely higher than I'll ever use. If I do have more than 500, I can always carry 2 cards with me.

Say I had 700 to spend, I could put the same dates on the card, and keep one completely open, and scratch off down to 200 on the second card. Then when I spend the first 200 on that card card, I can move on to the second card and use the remaining 500. I will gladly welcome the day when I have this problem :)
10th-Oct-2009 01:40 am (UTC) - This is an awesome idea....
Anonymous
I love this... I also use an awesome system for keeping track of my schedule
notes, a weekly calendar and other odd stuff called a pocket mod. ( www.pocketmod.com ) This will fit nicely into that system as one of the pages.

Very nice Idea!
10th-Oct-2009 02:28 pm (UTC) - Re: This is an awesome idea....
[info]posicat
I just emailed the admin of PocketMod, maybe my card can find a home in that project. PocketMod is great, I'm setting up a PocketMod for myself.
12th-Oct-2009 05:17 am (UTC) - How did you manage to get the numbers on there I have no idea - but I would definitely love a couple
[info]new_experiences
Hi!

You have done some amazing work with them! I would love to get the template from you if possible because that is a lot of work to recreate.

I would especially be interested in seeing the back of them..
12th-Oct-2009 01:06 pm (UTC) - Re: How did you manage to get the numbers on there I have no idea - but I would definitely love a co
[info]posicat
I just used Vista Print to make my cards, so I really don't have a template. But I can explain how I made it.

I used Excel started at 500, cell B1 was the formula (A1 - 5) and dragged that cell out until it reached 450 (J1). Then I went to A2 entered (A1 - 50) and dragged that down until it was 50 (A10). Highlighted all of the -5 cells (B1 to J1) and dragged down to fill in the rest of the table. Then I copied and pasted that into Notepad, highlighted one of the tab-spaces between the numbers copied it and replaced (edit / replace / paste ... change Replace to a single space) it with a space. I had to manually change the 2 and 1 digit numbers for the correct spacing. Then I copied and pasted line by line into Vista Print's Template line by line, made the lower numbers green yellow and red, and added in the background image.

I uploaded the back here, it's not as exciting saddly. http://wiki.cattech.org/wiki/index.php?title=Business_Card_Quick_Ledger
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