Now to straighten out the last weird thing about the farmette (at least for now). Last Saturday, sister gave me a paper grocery bag of envelopes, proclaiming, "I am my father's daughter."
Yikes.
That night, I went through the bag, shucking envelopes like oysters. Many were closed, which was depressing. It turns out that about 40% of it was hers but had nothing to do with the farmette.
I sorted into four piles: statements from our farmette bank account, bills that are clearly farmette, incidental letters and info clearly farmette, sister's items.
I then made an excel workbook with three spreadsheets: costs, deposits, summary statement that linked the total costs and total deposits - the number is black if we are in the black, red if we have more bill than deposit. There were two transactions that I had to correlate with sister's checkbook.
This took me all of 45 minutes. We were in the black, the big assumption being that she put everything in the checkbook and the grocery bag.
"Could you at least get one of those file boxes with the handle? At least its swankier than the grocery bag." I chided.
I extracted a promise that sister would send me the spreadsheet, then tell me the totals of the bills so I update. It'll force her to open the mail. (Drat, I should have saved the spreadsheet on my flash drive.)
Man, that bugs me. Sister's not an accountant, doesn't 10-key, and doesn't do audits, but at least open the mail and tally your bills up with a calculator. I'm trying to figure out what sister's so afraid of. I'm worried that I contributed to it a bit by threatening to cut her off. But if you treat your bills like they are going down a rathole, then I have to assume that my money is going down the same rathole.
Money's complicated, but if you tackle it one thing at a time, its not bad. I was afraid, once, when I had more commitments than money. The first step is being able to face the bad news.
paper bag filing
October 8th, 2007 at 05:27 am
October 8th, 2007 at 07:12 am 1191827551
We've opened the mail too now, much of what wasn't opened, and we've dispensed with all the envelopes. File folders, labeled........and in the drawer, with the exception of what she considers her 'working files' which are on the kitchen table, and the telephone desk, and the windowsill. Not sure I can make much headway with this part of the system. But, I do know it is all 2007 stuff, which is a step in the right direction I guess.
Best of luck sorting out your bag of info!!!
October 8th, 2007 at 01:18 pm 1191849499
October 8th, 2007 at 03:18 pm 1191856711
loved that phrase, 'shucking envelopes like oysters.' Very descriptive and original!
October 8th, 2007 at 04:12 pm 1191859956
Only 45 minutes?! That sounds like a task that would have taken me all day. Especially the 10-key part. Gazillions of errors, you know!
October 8th, 2007 at 06:30 pm 1191868253
Fern - and some of those envelopes had good glue. They were as hard to get open as an oyster. I guess its a security perk - it will slow down the identity thief.