At work today, I was reading through old, old, old articles from the archives at Good Housekeeping to find finance tips that we printed between 1900 and 1920 (it's for some retrospective thing because GH is turning 125). I found a letter from one woman who wrote in to the magazine in, oh, 1912, describing the way that she organized her household finances and set up her savings.
Please note: I hate financial stuff. In fact, I am not a huge fan of "grown-up" stuff in general. Paying bills and dealing with healthcare stupidity are just not my thing. I am not the person that you want dealing with big scary bugs, or clogged drains, or doctors' referrals.
And I loathe Quicken. I'm great at buying stuff - if you want receipts, I've got 'em. And (gulp) Quicken's not all that hard to take care of: you enter in the receipt info, you upload what the bank says, you cross-reference it with whatever the paper statements say, you click a couple of buttons, done. Still, it is my pet peeve. Sometimes those teeny tiny cab receipts get lost and you have to just circle the transaction in question, hoping that your identity has not been stolen by some thrill-seeker who's using your credit card number to take inexpensive cab rides and shop at Duane Reade. Or, worse, the ink gets smudged on said damned cab receipts, and you get to spend 15 minutes deciphering which $8.50 cab ride this receipt is for - or, no, wait, it must be this receipt - or...argh! The statements are typed in the absolute smallest font possible, it all seems awfully redundant with all the checking and crossing off and double-checking and x marks the spot, and, worst of all, it's math.
I don't do math.
But I digress.
This woman who wrote in to GH - she was talking about her finances the way that I normally refer to sample sales, or Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's. She used adjectives like "fascinating" and "exciting." I think she even threw in an exclamation point for emphasis.
Therefore, on the off chance that this woman (who is now easily 110 years old, if she's even alive) will read this, I would just like to say: Ma'am, please G-d, you can balance my "fascinating" checkbook for me any day.
