it's all just numbers

[kirkcudbright]

I have a huge mental block about all things financial. As in hate hate hate dealing with it. It's 2am on the day taxes are due, and I've just finished. Of course, I only got the software, much less started working on the taxes, on Saturday. I've also gone through more than half a bottle of tequila in that time. It doesn't make me smarter - I can feel it making me stupider, or at least slower, but it modulates the anxiety, and I don't care so much if I can't find all the receipts, and I end up making up numbers, and it's all just numbers.

It's all. Just. Numbers.

According to the ones and zeros of the tax prep software, I should be getting a $1000 refund from the feds, and another $139 from the state. But I couldn't even bring myself to look behind the curtain until the absolute last minute.

I used to be better at dealing with this stuff. Back I had to mail checks for every bill, every month, I at least used to manage to clear the desk every 6 weeks or so. Now most everything is auto-paid from checking or credit card, and I mostly just have to remember to pay the credit card bill (online) every month. Other stuff (e.g. non-periodic bills, deposits) accumulates on the desk, along with catalogs, magazines, and credit card offers, until it slips off the desk, and I have to deal with it (or at least pulp enough of the junk mail to re-stabilize the pile).

You'd think that things like auto-pay would make my life less stressful, and they've doubtless saved me from countless late charges and suspension notices, but they've also allowed me to stress about things I'm not dealing with, and to continue not dealing with them. I can't be bothered to deposit checks, because I belong to a credit union with three offices, which are 10, 20, and 40 miles away. Some of these are things like birthday checks, and I'm not going to hassle my parents to cut me a new check, just because I was too lame to cash the previous one. But there's also a Quite Sizeable check from a financial services company, that I'm going to have to get replaced, and I'm not looking forward to that either. It should all be direct deposit, and direct debit, so I don't have to deal with anyone's checks, mine or theirs. And then I'll be back to dealing solely with cash, and the only money worry is whether I have enough in my pocket.

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

And yet, you somehow seem to have it so together, despite this mental block you speak of. FWIW, you certainly aren't alone with this frustration.

It should all be direct deposit, and direct debit, so I don't have to deal with anyone's checks, mine or theirs. And then I'll be back to dealing solely with cash, and the only money worry is whether I have enough in my pocket.

No doubt it will soon be that way. Things will have gone so 'modern' that they'll seem to be back to 'the way it used to be'. Like being so yin that it's yang, or something like that.

Hang in there.

[mrw42.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear that someone I respect, someone who seems to be doing a reasonable job of keeping things together, feels this way, too... I've always been positively neurotic about money, and I thought I was the only one who felt this way.

In my twenties, I thought it would get better if I had more money, but as I've accumulated more, it just seems that I have to think about it _more_ often.

Each tax season, I come _this_ close to a nervous breakdown. At this point, I have a tax accountant, but I still manage to suffer from colossal stress just trying to get the paperwork together to send to her.

I often end-up paying late fees while I have more than enough to pay my bills sitting in the bank. I've sacrificed thousands of dollars in expenses over the years because I can't bring myself to fill out expense reports for ~$100. And, I also keep checks for weeks or even months at a time, even though my bank is only 10 minutes away.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i prefer cash, too.

i pay a guy a lot fof $ every year to do my taxes for me. i'm a wimp that way.

[dpolicar]

Man, I'm so glad it's not just me.
All the way to the uncashed checks in my pocket.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Amen, brother!

The funny thing is that I used to do bookkeeping as part of my admin work and worked for a financial management company for a while and considered it my best job ever. Other people's money isn't fun for me, the way it is for some, but I don't get stressed out about it, the way I do about my own.

Jason and I discovered, fairly early in our marriage, that it's best for us to discuss money via IM, simply because each of us gets really tense and it's easy for us to mistake the other's tension as anger. We've never fought about money, but it's not a happy subject for either of us.

Our deal now is that I handle the day-to-day money-dealing (getting checks deposited--which I often do by mail--dealing with bills, etc.) and he does the taxes. That way I have minor tension all year long and he has one major bout of it.

Congratulations on getting your taxes done.

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

Francie does almost all of the laundry, most of the dishes and cleaning, and generally keeps us out of squalor. I get most of the money into the household, and manage the outflow as well, however ungracefully. We both wish we'd married someone more organized, so we wouldn't have to be.

I'm intrigued by the idea of discussing money over IM, except for the fact that I don't/won't use IM.

[wereterrier.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I recall that I used to do the taxes. I gave it up during the years that we needed a paid preparer, and afterwards, you took it over. I don't miss it.

You know, about every two weeks, I stop for breakfast at the bakery next to the bank, and I usually walk over to the bank to take money out while they're toasting my bread. If you can remember to sign a check and hand it to me, I'll deposit it.

Obviously, this discussing matters in writing has merit (and I should read your journal more frequently). Would you be up for using Groove, again? I still have a free copy left, and we could have a private workgroup. It also has the advantage of end-to-end encryption....

[solarbird]

Paper cheques and the credit union: Find out who there accepts mailed-in deposits. Somebody does. Then stamp the cheques "FOR DEPOSIT ONLY" and the front _and_ the back with your account number (and sign the back) and put them and a deposit slip in a security envelope (or just wrap in an extra sheet of paper) and drop off in a blue postbox. This worked for me, anyway, when I was doing that routinely. I did this for about, hum, four years and never had an issue.

As for the rest, I did my own taxes for a while, but now that it's at the point where it takes about three days just to prep everything, I end up leaving the second stage (actually dealing with forms and tax law) to an accountant. It takes a double session with him, but it's better than keeping at it myself.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Exactly right. This is what I do for the credit union I belong to, which is near BU so not convenient at all. I've never had a check lost.

I do have an upper dollar limit for doing this, which varies. But for example, when I had a $5K check, I went to the CU office directly.

[ceo]

I belong to the same credit union kirkcudbright does, and they're even less geographically convenient for me. They will, if you ask, send you a bunch of business-reply envelopes for mailing in deposits, as we found out when they included one with the receipt from a hand-addressed mailed-in deposit.

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

The Lowell office is not too far out of my way, on my way to work, and even more so when I'm taking classes at UML. It's just a matter of remembering to take the checks when I leave the house, make sure Francie has signed the ones that are made out to both of us (or forge her signature), and deliver them to the bank. It's not difficult, it's just a number of steps I seldom manage to string together.

[totient]

Yeah, what you said. I have to remind myself every year when cleaning off my desk to find the tax-relevant paperwork that the reason there's a year's worth of crap here is that I have the great luxury of not having to clean it off the rest of the year.

And I'm so glad for direct deposit of tax refunds.

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

And I'm so glad for direct deposit of tax refunds.

Otherwise there'd be another check languishing in the pile on the desk...

[http://users.livejournal.com/cgull_/]

Amen, brother.

I've seen it argued that here in the US, money is a source of stress and irrationality for many people and families.

I'll third that mailing checks to everyones' Favored Toilet Paper credit union works pretty well.

(I just discovered that I already paid some of the taxes I paid tonight. *facepalm*)