It dawned on me from a conversation I had at work, when a co-worker complained that she has fallen so behind on balancing her checkbook that she flat-out quit.
I was going to pipe up and say that I have two years' worth of ATM receipts I need to put on my check registers ... and then the machinations of my OCD kicked in, making me remember something I was determined to do when my affliction was most acute.
And then I kicked my own ass. See (and I am sorry if I have already touched on this on Wailing And Failing), I still keep my ATM receipts because, one of these days, I am going to write those receipts down on my registers. And then I will go to the Wells Fargo statements I still get through the mail every month in order to check off all the receipts that are listed there. (That is where I would add other debits [such as automatic payments] and credits [such as automatic deposits] onto the register, and that is how I would catch up.)
But, well, shit, life happens. I haven't done anything with the registers -- writing down ATM receipts nor anything else that involves my checking account -- since I vacationed in St. Louis two years ago. In fact, I get so busy, I need to go to St. Louis (specifically the only 24-hour coffeehouse in town) in order to sit myself down and fill out the registers, which I also forget and need to remember to go to a Wells Fargo branch to get. And so I am miles away from the final step, looking over the WF statements so that, once I check off those ATM receipts, I could put that month's receipts into the envelope and, finally, throw them away.
Well, when I heard my co-worker talk about balancing her checkbook, I realized that I had short-circuited myself with that last step. See, I had finally started to get around to going through my bags of stuff from storage -- well, actually, I took out one bag from storage from, like, October and I finally got around to going through them last week. I felt as though I finally made some progress, as in finally deciding to throw envelopes away that I really didn't need to keep around. And it felt to dump those envelopes and have them picked up for recycling last Thursday. But at work yesterday I realized that some of those envelopes ... were those monthly statements from Wells Fargo.
Shit. And then not shit.
I have to be honest: While I am a couple years behind writing down my ATM receipts, I am way further behind when it comes to my final step of checking off those receipts against my statements. That storage bag seems to have envelopes from 2014 and 2015, and I know I have not checked off ATM receipts against my WF statements from then. If that bag I went through had statements -- and when I went through a bag I would have dumped into the recycling bin before next Thursday there were -- and if I had gone through statements and decided I could recycle them -- almost a certainty -- my plan on going through and checking off those receipts against those statements is now ruined because those statements are gone.
Yes, statements from four and five years ago. I really, really want to reconcile those statements from way back when. Except that the fact that I haven't even done them in four or five years kind of shows how little effort I really put into balancing my checkbook, my sporadic claims that I want to do so notwithstanding. I think I've said this before: How much do I really care if I have said the same thing for half a decade?
So there's nothing I can do now to save the WF statements I had recycled. And I have years of statements I need to find in my storage bin and arrange in chronological order. And then I guess I need to go to St. Louis monthly to be completely caught up with my ATM receipts. And maybe I can go through my statements online. So, in other words, maybe I should just get real with myself and admit that I will never get around to executing this plan. And yet I know that won't stop me from collecting ATM receipts ... or from going through the recycling bin tomorrow, after work and in the cold, for any WF statements I dumped in there from my indoor bag. In the backyard and away from prying eyes, of course.
I was going to pipe up and say that I have two years' worth of ATM receipts I need to put on my check registers ... and then the machinations of my OCD kicked in, making me remember something I was determined to do when my affliction was most acute.
And then I kicked my own ass. See (and I am sorry if I have already touched on this on Wailing And Failing), I still keep my ATM receipts because, one of these days, I am going to write those receipts down on my registers. And then I will go to the Wells Fargo statements I still get through the mail every month in order to check off all the receipts that are listed there. (That is where I would add other debits [such as automatic payments] and credits [such as automatic deposits] onto the register, and that is how I would catch up.)
But, well, shit, life happens. I haven't done anything with the registers -- writing down ATM receipts nor anything else that involves my checking account -- since I vacationed in St. Louis two years ago. In fact, I get so busy, I need to go to St. Louis (specifically the only 24-hour coffeehouse in town) in order to sit myself down and fill out the registers, which I also forget and need to remember to go to a Wells Fargo branch to get. And so I am miles away from the final step, looking over the WF statements so that, once I check off those ATM receipts, I could put that month's receipts into the envelope and, finally, throw them away.
Well, when I heard my co-worker talk about balancing her checkbook, I realized that I had short-circuited myself with that last step. See, I had finally started to get around to going through my bags of stuff from storage -- well, actually, I took out one bag from storage from, like, October and I finally got around to going through them last week. I felt as though I finally made some progress, as in finally deciding to throw envelopes away that I really didn't need to keep around. And it felt to dump those envelopes and have them picked up for recycling last Thursday. But at work yesterday I realized that some of those envelopes ... were those monthly statements from Wells Fargo.
Shit. And then not shit.
I have to be honest: While I am a couple years behind writing down my ATM receipts, I am way further behind when it comes to my final step of checking off those receipts against my statements. That storage bag seems to have envelopes from 2014 and 2015, and I know I have not checked off ATM receipts against my WF statements from then. If that bag I went through had statements -- and when I went through a bag I would have dumped into the recycling bin before next Thursday there were -- and if I had gone through statements and decided I could recycle them -- almost a certainty -- my plan on going through and checking off those receipts against those statements is now ruined because those statements are gone.
Yes, statements from four and five years ago. I really, really want to reconcile those statements from way back when. Except that the fact that I haven't even done them in four or five years kind of shows how little effort I really put into balancing my checkbook, my sporadic claims that I want to do so notwithstanding. I think I've said this before: How much do I really care if I have said the same thing for half a decade?
So there's nothing I can do now to save the WF statements I had recycled. And I have years of statements I need to find in my storage bin and arrange in chronological order. And then I guess I need to go to St. Louis monthly to be completely caught up with my ATM receipts. And maybe I can go through my statements online. So, in other words, maybe I should just get real with myself and admit that I will never get around to executing this plan. And yet I know that won't stop me from collecting ATM receipts ... or from going through the recycling bin tomorrow, after work and in the cold, for any WF statements I dumped in there from my indoor bag. In the backyard and away from prying eyes, of course.
No comments:
Post a Comment