Saturday Morning Ritual
I can remember it clearly. The box in the wash stand. How he sorted everything out on the kitchen table. The empty lid from the box of checks holding various bills and necessary items for the cause.
Every Saturday morning, my dad paid the bills. It was quite a process. There was balancing against the bank statement. There was usually some yelling as to why this or that check had not been written down by my mother and then some amount of agony as he waited for my mother to even remember what the check was used for or what the amount of it might have been.
And then he went through the bills one by one and paid each one, writing on the bill the check number and amount before putting it aside to be filed in its proper place.
All things had a proper place and all things having to do with bills or money were handled with care and precision. Paying bills was a meticulous, lengthy process.
I can remember going to the bank with him sometimes when he had to transfer money or get cash for the week. I remember going with my mom from location to location while she paid bills to the electric company, the phone company and the like IN PERSON to save the stamp.
I'll admit, I didn't keep the Saturday morning tradition, sometimes the task falls on a Tuesday night or before school on Thursday, but I have had a printed budget for years that shows the amounts I've paid for various bills every month. I've always balanced my checkbook and have had a filing cabinet full of old paperwork proving I paid my electric bill for every month that I've had one.
With my new laptop at the holidays, I promised I would enroll in online bill pay and banking and I kept my promise. I revised my budget, leaving off enough space for the amounts and leaving room for just a check mark to indicate it has been paid.
But this morning was when I truly noticed the difference. I balanced my checkbook. I paid bills. I transferred money. I checked things off my budget sheet and calculated ahead to make sure I was on target for the month.
And that all took about a half hour.
So now it's 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon and while I have, perhaps, accomplished all that my father might have years ago on his Saturday morning, I have done it in a fraction of the time and without a tremendous amount of the hassle.
I don't like technology so much when all it does is free up our time to do other housework and errands!
As a side note, I will say this: for anyone out there struggling with balancing the checkbook or getting all the bills together, it's really quite a simple process. Just be single. There's no wondering what these five debits are that were never recorded. There's never a wonder how 5 movies were purchased on demand this month that you knew nothing about. There's no question of who spent $75 at the grocery store on Sunday and another $15 on Monday. Personal ownership eliminates all of those hassles!! No one to blame. No one else to figure it out. Of course, the flip side is when you FINALLY get money in your savings with the full intention of LEAVING IT THERE after 18 months of being paycheck to paycheck, you have no one to rejoice with you. (But it still feels good!)
Every Saturday morning, my dad paid the bills. It was quite a process. There was balancing against the bank statement. There was usually some yelling as to why this or that check had not been written down by my mother and then some amount of agony as he waited for my mother to even remember what the check was used for or what the amount of it might have been.
And then he went through the bills one by one and paid each one, writing on the bill the check number and amount before putting it aside to be filed in its proper place.
All things had a proper place and all things having to do with bills or money were handled with care and precision. Paying bills was a meticulous, lengthy process.
I can remember going to the bank with him sometimes when he had to transfer money or get cash for the week. I remember going with my mom from location to location while she paid bills to the electric company, the phone company and the like IN PERSON to save the stamp.
I'll admit, I didn't keep the Saturday morning tradition, sometimes the task falls on a Tuesday night or before school on Thursday, but I have had a printed budget for years that shows the amounts I've paid for various bills every month. I've always balanced my checkbook and have had a filing cabinet full of old paperwork proving I paid my electric bill for every month that I've had one.
With my new laptop at the holidays, I promised I would enroll in online bill pay and banking and I kept my promise. I revised my budget, leaving off enough space for the amounts and leaving room for just a check mark to indicate it has been paid.
But this morning was when I truly noticed the difference. I balanced my checkbook. I paid bills. I transferred money. I checked things off my budget sheet and calculated ahead to make sure I was on target for the month.
And that all took about a half hour.
So now it's 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon and while I have, perhaps, accomplished all that my father might have years ago on his Saturday morning, I have done it in a fraction of the time and without a tremendous amount of the hassle.
I don't like technology so much when all it does is free up our time to do other housework and errands!
As a side note, I will say this: for anyone out there struggling with balancing the checkbook or getting all the bills together, it's really quite a simple process. Just be single. There's no wondering what these five debits are that were never recorded. There's never a wonder how 5 movies were purchased on demand this month that you knew nothing about. There's no question of who spent $75 at the grocery store on Sunday and another $15 on Monday. Personal ownership eliminates all of those hassles!! No one to blame. No one else to figure it out. Of course, the flip side is when you FINALLY get money in your savings with the full intention of LEAVING IT THERE after 18 months of being paycheck to paycheck, you have no one to rejoice with you. (But it still feels good!)
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