I remember when I opened my first checking account. I was so excited and I felt so grown up. Each month when my statement arrived I would diligently pull out my check book and proceed to balance my account. I love numbers…crazy, I know. (I used to teach high school math and one of my students asked me one time…”why do you teach math?”. I replied “I love math, the exactness of it all”. He rolled his eyes and said I was crazy.) But I digress.
And so it went. Every month I would look forward to my bank statement and the very act of balancing my account would make me happy. I think I would file this under – life’s little pleasures. Never scoff at the little pleasures in life. They are, after all, what makes life worth living.
Unfortunately, my love of balancing my checking account did not sustain the passage of time. Over the past 35 years I have balanced many a bank statement. For my own personal accounts and in the work place. I am a stickler for details. Why you may ask?…because order helps keep balance in my life. You can imagine how distraught I was with the whole ‘hanging chad’ mess in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election. 
During the past 10 years or so, I have been especially lax in balancing our checking account. The financial duties are left up to me in our household. Did I mention that I was a math teacher? Every once in awhile I think about handing this task over to my husband. Then I wake up from my nightmare and everything is right with the world again. Except, I still have to balance that darn checking account.
Well, as you can probably guess…I procrastinate. {gasp}, I know, me procrastinate. Is there a ‘concrastinate’ or an ‘amateurcrastinate’? Anyway, because of my procrastination, I end up with something that looks like this…
I have not balanced our account since…drumroll please…October 2007. Yup, major procrastinator. I have started and I am up to November. You might say, “why bother?”. Well there is that pesky little personality trait that I have…’anal retentiveness’. I have to have balance, balance, balance.
My goal is to have the checking account up-to-date by this weekend. Well, by the end of the weekend anyway, definitely by the end of next weekend. We’ll see. What was I going to do again?
I can’t wait to see your desk after the weekend. I hope you post the “after” picture. You should see our desk. We tried to be organized once…you know we made files with “urgent” “file” and we each had a place to put our mail but it just didn’t work the piles started to get over 5 inches tall. We also haven’t balances our check book for…wait for it…years! We do check the account on a regular (no exactly daily) basis to make sure we are not mischarged for anything but balancing a checkbook whats that?? JK. Good Luck!!
I think with the invention of on-line banking more and more people are choosing not to balance their checking account each month. I am just one of those people that need to control every little thing.
I totally understand about balancing the checkbook. I’m anal about it, too!
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LOL…. well, although my desk looks remarkably similar to yours most of the time… I can honestly say that I do NOT feel the burning need to balance my checkbook. At all. Ever. I seriously canNOT even remember the last time I did…. maybe not even since we rolled over the big Y2K. I look online periodically but… that’s about it.
My idea of making it balance is…. starting a new one. Close out the old one and just start fresh! Voila! Instant balance…. for a few days anyway! lol
Gee, you might not like me anymore – my secret is OUT!
My husband’s idea of balancing his checkbook was looking at the receipt he would get when he takes money out of the ATM. He looks at it and proclaims…”Yeah, looks about right”. Yee gads. When we combined our financial accounts, I told him, “I will be taking care of balancing the check book and all things financial.” He said…”have at it”.
Your secret is safe with me, oh, and the two other people who read my blog.
Haha…. well, all’s I can say is …. any old time you get the hankering for some serious balancing challenges, come visit me.. I’ll put ya to WORK.
No problem. I am a whiz at other people’s balancing…it’s my own I have trouble with.
hi
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good luck