He also taught me to avoid using to or for unnecessarily in transmissions, i.e. don't do this: "Departure,... is with you, 5 for 9." Instead say: "... is 5 climbing niner thousand."
Callsign and altitude(s) on check-in, and restriction(s) if applicable. Not too tough to do. At least it shouldn't be.
"With you", "checking in/on" are just redundant word fillers. The above method already implies that you're doing both.