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I've felt rather often lately that the best reason to give for things I do, is simply, "It makes me happy."
I look around and see so many unhappy people. People who hold onto and defend their complaints, grievances and miseries as though wretchedness is a comfortable state to live in. I don't understand this. I feel like...maybe we only get one shot here to live, so whatever makes you happy you should probably do. I mean, within reason and not abandoning your obligations, it's certainly not all about instant gratification or anything.
But being meticulous and fastidious and doing my finances and other organizational and administrative tasks this way...it makes me happy. So I do it. Other people think it would be a huge pain and it would stress them out. OK. Don't do it then. My Mom used to go driving and deliberately get lost. No idea where she was going, no purpose in it, just exploring the world around her. I would go too, sometimes. It was fun, we'd have great long conversations. Yet as an adult, the notion of being lost, not knowing where I was or where the road I was on might take me, really would stress me out. I map everything out carefully before I go anywhere unfamiliar. I like to keep my house clean before it has a chance to get dirty, so I never have to scrub a truly filthy anything, if possible. I like knowing where all of my things are, so I can find any of them instantly. Some people have no desire to live that way, or think it is a lot of work...well, you get to choose. You can do small amounts of cleaning more or less continuously and always put stuff in its spot and always have a clean place with a constant but low amount of effort. Or you can do nothing much of the time and let it all pile up and then have a big job to do occasionally. Or you can just live in a mess. My finances...I'm doing the constant but not intense amount of work. It is never stressful, because I watch it always.
But today I had a great example of why it's a good idea to watch my finances closely and "balance" my accounts. Yesterday I deposited a paper check with a teller, on my lunch break. Then about an hour later I logged in and checked my balance, and the bank website showed it as available, literally the screen text says "Money You Can Spend" next to that number, the available balance. It was there. I did not spend it, but my bank SAID that I could, even though it was a pending transaction, not a posted one. This morning I logged in again, and it was gone. Not a pending transaction, not available or partially available. GONE. My "Money You Can Spend" number was less that amount. I believe this is simply because the check hasn't cleared, but what if I'd trusted them and spent that money yesterday and didn't check it today, just assumed all was well?
And I've had my available balance be off for various reasons before. It tends to get sorted out without much intervention by me, or sometimes with a phone call, but I want to know what is going on there. And what else am I going to be doing while I drink my coffee in the morning? Watch the news? No thanks!
I don't. I just know I have money there so whatever. If by some chance I'm short, I have my savings linked. I guess if you're on a check to check budget you might have to but I'm not.
Before I got married, I never balanced my checkbook. If I wrote a check for say $23.67 I would write it down as $25.00. If I wrote a check for $25.08 I would write it down as $30.00. I did this for years.
My wife balances the checkbook weekly by going online. She is one of those that tracks it down to the penny and she is never wrong. I still prefer my old way but she couldn’t stand it.
I round up also and it works for me! Once I even changed banks to see if I could get the first month with the new bank to balance. Never could do it, so threw up my hands and said forget it. A friend tried to instruct me how to balance my checkbook--"It's really easy!" Okay, I understand the concept, just can't get the figures to sort themselves out. I wouldn't work as a teller if they paid a thousand dollars an hour. Numbers have never been my thing either and I'd rather do anything than math.
Seems to be a left brain thing, I'm sure my ex balanced to the penny and he loved math. We were so opposite in almost everything, wonder how the stars put us together for a while,,,guess it was the religious thing.
A friend of mine was a CPA and said her husband refuses to balance his checkbook (they kept separate accounts). . . he just went by what the bank said he had at the end of each month.
She thought it was funny.
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