10 Signs You Have Financial OCD
- It irritates you when cashiers give you the bills back before the coins. Hello! You’re supposed to put the coins in my hand first, then the bills. Otherwise the coins fall all over the place!
- You keep your bills organized in your wallet from lowest to highest, all facing forward and upright. How else are you going to know how much money you have and prevent advertising the amount of cash you’re carrying from everyone else? Plus, Suze Orman told you to!
- You check your bank account online every day. Even though you balance your checkbook, you still like to know exactly which day the electric company cashes their check.
- You always know the exact balance of your retirement accounts, even though you’re thirty years from retirement. It affects your net worth, you know!
- You’re unable to throw out old financial records. You see, someday you might need to know your average monthly water bill, and since that information is only kept online for three months, how else would you be able to figure it out? Quicken? Well, what if your computer crashes and you haven’t backed up your files for four months?
- When you owe someone money, you pay with exact change. When your coworker goes to McDonald’s and picks up your #9, you give him $5.26. It’s only fair.
- You split the cost of the stamp with your roommates when paying the cable bill. Let’s see, that will be $22.16 for you, $22.16 for me, and $22.17 for Erica. Sorry, Erica, but it’s your month to pay the extra penny. Oh, and everyone’s total includes 13 cents for the stamp - well, it’s actually 14 cents for Kim and I, of course.
- When you take your change jar to the bank, you count all the change ahead of time. You just can’t wait to find out how much money you’re going to have! Plus, now you’ll know if the teller drops a quarter on the way to the change machine.
- You play games with your money. “Never spend a $20 dollar bill.” “Round up your transactions to the nearest dollar and transfer the rest to savings.” “Hide $50 in your underwear drawer and see if it’s still there next paycheck.”
- You can account for every dollar you’ve spent in the past 10 years. Well, you have to keep track of your cash purchases too, because that’s where most “leakage” occurs! Plus, what better way to illustrate to your spouse that they’re spending too much money on vending machine purchases than through a pie chart in Quicken?
