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3:17 p.m. - 2003-01-23
Checkbook
Last night, over a delicious dinner of glop, Bruce and I started talking about our finances. It was the usual unhappy conversation of me going on about how I really ought to get a job and Bruce telling me I ought not to. He doesn't want me to work at anything other than my art and the house because:

A) I put him through graduate school and so it's kind of my turn to develop some sort of career and

B) If we are very careful about spending we can actually live pretty decently on just his salary, since Alabama is so cheap and

C) When I'm working I turn into the world's crankiest nasty ass bitch. It's not pleasant to come home to, and Bruce, sane man that he is, does not want to come home to it. He'd prefer to come home to a smiling little bat and a pot of glop.

So, once again I allowed myself to be lulled into not looking for a job by his reassurances that it is unnecessary and undesireable. But I did get worked up enough about money to decide to pull up my boot straps and balance the checkbook. I haven't even looked at our bank statements since September. I got so sucked up in the new house frenzy that I just threw them in our housekeeping book and told myself I'd deal with them....later. So here it is January, which I think is as close to "later" as I should probably get.

I usually do the checkbook when I'm alone because both Bruce and I have quirks that make it a tedious and gnarly process. Basically we both have bad habits that we seem pathologically unable to give up. Balancing the checkbook is, therefore, a guaranteed nightmare, which turns me into a nattering nasty crank.

Bruce's part in this nightmare is that he stores up all his receipts for a week or more and then writes them down in the checkook en masse, in no particular chronological order. He also tends to lose them, so there is always at least one that doesn't get entered at all. So I have to go through all his disordered entries to match them to the check register, and then when I can't find an entry the real hysteria begins.

This, however, is nothing compared to the insanity which is Fruitbat Bookkeeping. At least Bruce's entries, when I finally find them, are accurately written. This is an example of one of my typical checkbook entries:

WAM 9/17 Hobby Lobby $8.???

Looks straightforward, eh? Except for the "$8.?". Don't be fooled. This is what it translates as:

"WAM": This stands for "Withdrawal At Machine" and is any transaction that was done at an ATM or a store. Or it maybe I paid by check but I can't remember the number. Or maybe it wasn't a checking transaction at all. I could have withdrawn it from the savings account. Maybe I paid cash! You just never know....

"9/17": It was probably the 17th of September. It might have been the 16th or the 18th, though. It probably wasn't the 15th or the 19th but it wouldn't hurt to check those days anyway.

"Hobby Lobby": Or possibly Michael's. All those big chain craft stores all look the same. I never know where I am, anyway.

"$8.?": I can't remember how much I spent, and I've lost the receipt. I know it wasn't more than $7.50, and the number "$7.34" sticks in my head. But I'll just put "$8." and a question mark and that should cover it. I'll figure it out....when I balance the checkbook.


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