by Natalie Delia

Created on: March 22, 2009

Call me crazy, but I am taking this whole financial crisis thing as a call to learn something from the past eight years. I think now is a good time to review the buy-now-pay-later, my-credit-score-is-my-job world view so maybe I won't have to use the word "pickle" to describe my financial situation again. Things I am trying to learn include, but are not limited to: 1) if I can't afford it, I don't need it, 2) if I

don't have the money to buy it, then I can't afford it, 3) I will know what I am buying before I buy it, as well as the total expense of the purchase and 4) the word "expense" means the same as the words "giant boulder tied around my neck" and a "recurring expense" is a "giant boulder tied around my neck that I can't untie, even if I'm drowning." I've committed to reviewing each and every single purchase, each and every single bill, and making sure that the benefit it brings merits the expense it costs. I sit down twice a month and write checks to cover my paper bills. On the bills' remittances, I register the check number I have used to pay the bill. In my check register, I record the remittance number of the bill the check paid.

I used to have everything set up to transfer bills and other payments electronically. "Why bother writing checks?" Gosh! They're so old-fashioned!" Great, but I never had any idea how much anything cost. Why would I? Everything got charged and I only made minimum payments. I never had any idea how much was in the bank account at any given time. Why would I care? I had an overdraft line of credit that I had no problem using.

Maybe I'm being reactionary, but I'm no longer interested in anything new-fangled or modern when it comes to money. I, like everyone else in this country, listened to 8 years of new financial ideas and how they were going to save the world. I believed that down payments were out, adjustable rate was in, the stock market could only get higher and the unemployment rate would always be low. Electonic Money Transfers are symptomatic of the pre-crisis thinking: they make spending money easier and our lives as happy little consumers with no day of reckoning that much freer. They make it easier to separate the purchasing from the paying.

Now that we have all collectively come back to our senses, I'm back to my checks. It may be boring to think about mundane things like where the money goes and how much is left, but that's where I'm at.

Learn more about this author, Natalie Delia.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.