In his quest to find our son's missing Tiger Cub Scout handbook, my husband actually went through my mail basket. You probably have one or something like it. You know, the place where you dump all the mail you're going to come back to. The stuff you need to deal with ... later ... just not now.
Confession: I never finish going through the mail. I say I'm going to do it later, but later never comes. At least not without the calendar turning a few pages first.
Needless to say, he was rightly appalled by what he found in there.
- Several medical bills that hadn't been paid. (And a lot that had been paid, by the way. Last year was a big year for medical bills for us.)
- A check. Ouch! How could I miss that?
- Several months of unopened bank statements. I download transactions into Quicken, so statements are really redundant, right?
- A bill from our lawn service, which I hadn't paid because I forgot that they were our lawn service. I honestly thought they were just randomly spraying our lawn.
I started doing this a few years ago thinking that it would help me stay organized with mail, receipts, and other paperwork. What I found is that it is a great way to organize stuff so that three years later, I can find the receipt telling me what we paid for the new garage door.
What it does not do is keep my mail organized. Or current. Or even opened.
So my 2011 binder is finished. But my struggle with mail is not. I will memorialize this day by coming up with yet another "system" to organize the mail. Hopefully it will not be like the 27 other mail systems that have come and gone over the years. Will this be the year that I finish battling with mail? Advice is welcome.
I sure hope so. Embarrassed is not my favorite shade of red.
Finish well.
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