for dummies

And if you we're wondering....

yes, I did recently buy "Photoshop for Dummies."

11:59:26 PM    

bill gates, I'm not

Poor organizational skills and a checking account is a very costly mix.

I knew I'd be cutting it close the last couple of weeks with some bills that were going out.  I just floated them through my internet checking and figured I'd get the cash in the account as fast as I could.  I was prepared to pay a couple of overdraft fees, and chalk it up to my "head in the clouds" lifestyle.

But, ohhhhhhhhhhhhh what a fucking fiasco it turned out to be.  Despite rushing cash to the bank as soon as I made it, I just kept getting deeper and deeper into the hole.  The "nsf" fees just kept popping up one after the next--9 of them in a little over two weeks (at $32 a pop).  What really burns me is that most of the "bounced" charges were less the than the overdraft fees themselves.  $20 in gas; $12 at the drug store; and even $2 to the gas company. Each of them sucking up another $32 bucks.

I sat down with the bank people a couple of times to try to straighten it all out and see if there was some mistake.  Then I discovered they were charging me another five dollars every time I asked for a printout of my transactions.

Doh!

Today I was just like--fuck it!-- my checking account has just turned into a black hole.  I can't keep throwing real usable cash into a garbage disposal of multiplying, red ink bank fees.  I actually have to pay bills and buy food with this stuff.

So now, at 34 years of age and after 16 years of working (with many years over 65k per year) I have a personal net worth of negative $70.

(Of course, that doesn't include the tens of thousands in debt (both good and bad I have).

(If you are a member of a lending institution at which I might one day apply for a loan, please disreguard this.  It's just a fanciful work of fiction.  I'm financially rock solid.)

(Crack rock, that is).

(For some reason, I keep having these thoughts that quitting my job will somehow help.  But that doesn't really make sense does it?  But if you think about it, bums usually don't go below a net worth of zero.  Only working people operate in the zones of negative net worth).

9:13:39 PM