to be annoyed it took 2 weeks for friend to cash cheque

[mixedmama]

I am being a little unreasonable I know, but just need to say it.

We borrowed a substantial amount of money from a friend whilst we were selling our property, which I am very grateful for.

We gave him a cheque two weeks ago and as such have since been monitoring the account to make sure money is not spent etc.... turns out he has just cashed it yesterday and we are now £60 short... I know it is only £60 and can be replaced, but this has really messed us up this week as DH new job pays on Monday rather than Friday which leaves everything up in the air until Monday...

Suppose I am annoyed at DH company for not telling us, altho he couldve asked but who gets paid on Mondays??? Secondly, why take so long to cash a cheque. I know I should just appreciate he was very patient in waiting for his money and it was more than generous of him to lend it in the first place, but ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

UK cheques are all 'crossed' by default now - its those two vertical lines down the middle.

My dad, for some reason I can't remember, used to specially order non-crossed cheques.

If you have uncrossed cheques you just draw a pair of vertical lines across where you write the payee account name and the amount.

Yes, I see you already know it, but you are being unreasonable. Once you have written a cheque you have to regard it as spent, and if you were monitoring the account, I can't see how you failed to do this.

We use financial software just to guard against this. Every time we write a cheque or pay for something in a shop or online or whatever, we enter it straight away in Quicken. Then it shows as being 'spent' so we don't use that money because it isn't ours any more!

you can't pass on cheques anymore - can only be lodged into named persons a/c- just in case anyone ever trys to pass one on to you.

Elliephant, I don't think you ever could in the UK. I lived there many years ago, and I remember my mother sent me a cheque that was made out to her, but the bank wouldn't accept it. So I had to post it back to her. Wouldn't have minded, but I was a student and needed the money!
In Ireland, once you sign your name on the back of the cheque you can cash it into your account.
Nappyaddict, I suppose it's that compulsory signing that indicates where the cheque has gone if it was ever to be traced. You could probably write a false name though...