My refrigerator was never so clean as when I was studying for exams.
I will pay bills after my power and water get turned off.
Heebie, I have to say, that story really surprised me. My limited experience with that sort of thing is that they warn you and warn you and warn you before anything happens, and it takes MONTHS. Maybe that's just in the cold NE, where people die from cold or complications from kerosene heaters.
(And my condolences. What a nuisance.)
My problem is that my dissertation and cleaning the kitchen (anything above and beyond daily dishes) tie for very hated task.
I have put as many of my bills as humanly possible onto automatic bill pay because it falls about as far down on my procrastination hierarchy, too. What's worse, even when I actually sit down and write out the checks, I usually forget to mail them for weeks.
3: How weird! For being four days late with the check?
You know, I remember hearing in Michigan that it was illegal to turn off someone's heat in the winter. And there are possible horrible repercussions with people with extensive medical machinery, etc. The more I think about it, the more strange it does seem.
Probably small town plus no one has sued yet.
7: Well, I did the Bank of America thing on the 29th. They then take a few more days to process it. But it was in the system by the morning of the 6th, when Jammies went to settle up.
(where Bank of America sends a check out for you, using their billpay service. Which is generally AWESOME and makes my life way easier and is FREE.)
I once neglected to pay the electricity for 6 months and nothing bad happened. To be fair, though, it really wasn't my fault. I had just moved into the place, there was a separate util bill I was paying, and nobody told me I had to call up an electric company and get the apartment switched over to me before I would even get a bill....
Sounds to me like you got a shit-ton accomplished. Thanks, structured procrastination!
Then when I got home last night, after going to the gym, there was a notice on the doorknob saying they didn't turn the water back on because of a leak. I almost had a heart attack. I thought they were going to make us wait without water until we could meet a repair person during business hours.
It turns out that they're happy to send someone out after hours to turn your water on, because it's probably just something like leaving a faucet in the "on" position. Which it was, and all is well.
Who pays bills anymore? Don't you just set it up on their or your bank's site and forget about it? And doing taxes if friggin' awesome since it all moved online. Granted, my taxes are simple because I don't own a home, work in one state, and don't take any deductions, but still, clicky clicky, free money (usually).
The city of San Marcos didn't have online payments available until just recently, like in the last month or two.
Don't get me started about taxes. Two countries are conspiring to make my life difficult in that department to the degree that it is easier and cheaper for me to pay someone $250/hour to sort them out. It really shouldn't be this complicated.
Now that automatic bill pay has made paying bills online so easy, paying bills that actually require writing a check (like coinsurance bills, etc.) just seems so freaking hard.
I only pay about 2 bills a month now that require my online intervention so I'm really bad about remembering to do it. I used to be so on top of things!
It really shouldn't be this complicated.
I'm with soup biscuit here. I actually made a little bit of money playing music this year. Figuring out exactly how much that was, minus the relevant deductions (the trailer we bought; the many drumsticks I bought and broke; gasoline; food on the road) is a massive fucking headache. Can I deduct bourbon? Because thinking about it makes me want some.
And my taxes are a nightmare. At least I only have 2 states this year instead of 3, like last year.
Holy smokes, I am a Luddite. I don't pay any bills online.
18/19: The most fun is when they say "To figure out if you should do A or B, refer to the text of the tax treaty between country X and country Y".
In other words, if you don't happen to be an international tax lawyer/accountant, you're screwed.
Fuck taxes. Get married and immigrate halfway through a year and work in both countries during that year and watch your head asplode.
This basic phenomenon has been dubbed "fauxductivity" by a friend of mine, i.e. willful misprioritization of one's responsibilities. You can get a lot of crap done that way.
10: I just started using Bank of America's billpay service and it confused the hell out of me. I was afraid I hadn't put in my cell phone account correctly, so I checked with Verizon, and lo! and behold! it had been paid. But the money was still in my checking account! They took the money from my checking after they paid the bill.
22 is very close to my situation; I suspect ours is perhaps even worse. Which is why I gave up and accountants are sorting it out.
(which reminds me, shivbunny may run into trouble with any investments he has/had in Canada, if that applies. Did you know? Certain ones he can't exactly hold as of the day he left the country to become permanent resident. It doesn't mean he has to actually cash them out, but he might have to virtually cash them out. RRSPs are exempt, I think)
Sadly, I'm in the best shape of my life.
Paying bills online is great, but I won't do automatic billpay because I want to pull the trigger myself. The one place I do automatic billpay is I bill DirectTV directly to my credit card, which I then pay online. Recently they were able to overcharge me substantially for about three months before I noticed it. They wouldn't take it off my bill until I told them I was cancelling my service.
Man, I own a home and everything and my taxes are still pretty simple. Mine were done the last full weekend of January.
What I hate every year is doing the taxes of a 501c for which I'm the treasurer. Christ do I hate doing those taxes even though the form has "EZ" in its name.
I heart automatic bill pay. It's the only reason I have utilities, a therapist, and a decent credit rating.
My credit union does it for free, too, which means I finally dumped BoA. As Mojo Nixon says, I hate banks!
You lot seem like savages sometimes. I use Direct Debit for everything, and have done for about 13 years (since I've not been in a house-sharing situation). The only bill I pay by cheque is my daughter's guitar lessons.
And Becks - do you have to go job-hunting *every time* you need to get some washing done?
You know what makes taxes complicated? Not filing them for a few years, during which time you buy a house, sell stock your wonderfully penny-pinching grandpa left to you for the down payment, get a big ass tax credit for buying in a not-yet-gentrified place, sell the house, move to a different state, and earn dividends on the stock you didn't sell.
Granted, none of it would have been horribly complicated if I'd actually filed on time, but, well, things came up.
I could probably pay for more things by direct deposit now that I no longer have untrustworthy roommates, but I still want to see itemised bills for electricity and phone usage. (Mostly so that I can enjoy my thrifty outrage and vows to do better next month.)
30 is right.
The one regular bill [a credit card that I've long since paid off and cancelled] that didn't offer Direct Debit, I must have forgotten to pay at least 50% of the time.
Actually, like 33, I pay utilities by cheque as we split them with our downstairs neighbour.
33, 34: Actually, I share a cell plan with a friend and am able to do my portion by automatic bill pay -- she does an electronic payment for her share and the rest automatically gets charged to my card. (Though I guess this wouldn't work as well if she were untrustworthy.) I can pull up an itemized PDF of the bill (for everything I pay automatically) online any time I want to.
33 - Direct Debit doesn't stop you getting itemised descriptions of usage though; I just get sent (well, used to get sent - most of them I look at online these days) statements rather than bills.
As Mojo Nixon says, I hate banks!
He had nice things to say about music television also.
We regularly play "Elvis is Everywhere" by Mojo.
I share a cell plan with a friend
Has she found out yet?
I share a cell with a friend
It's so nice when things work out that way.
Obama Girl seems to have a hierarchy of activities as well:
'Obama Girl' Didn't Vote
Related, this pisses me off, assuming the author's conclusions are correct:
Obama loses Silicon Valley to Clinton: Is anyone surprised?
I didnt read the rest of the thread yesterday. Jackmormon is Obama Girl?
What pisses you off about it, Kraab? My guess is that Asians and Indians don't want to vote for a black guy, but that's not what the article (just skimmed) says.
It would piss me off if people gave $ money to or otherwise supported Obama but didn't bother to vote, especially in CA. But the author could obviously be wrong in that inference.
You know what makes taxes complicated? Not filing them for a few years
Fucking hell. We've got two years of filing to catch up on, with the incentive that we'll be getting back thousands, but it takes forever to collect all the info we need because I'm a freelancer and I have a jillion deductions.
People, if your taxes are complicated and you've never used an accountant, get one! Ours has saved us way more than he charges; he's also a fanatical dittohead who's convinced that Karl Marx created the estate tax, but that means he's committed to keeping the gubmint from getting any more of my hard-earned dollars than it deserves. I can't wait to hear him weigh in on the election. I'll just bite my tongue and think, "more money for Obama."
40: If anyone has fond memories of the Clinton economy, it's got to be Silicon Valley, assuming a little bit of repression of the turn of the millennium.
43: What if they gave £ money? Then it would make sense that they didn't vote.
I should say that it pisses me off on behalf of Hillary as well. Basically, anyone who claims to be a supporter of anyone and doesn't vote pisses me off -- if they can reasonably get to the polls, which can be a big "if " given jobs and day care and transportation and I.D. and etc. issues.
46: Wait, did you mean that to mean pounds, as in foreigners? Or am I not getting it?
41.---Nuh-uh! I took the train for an HOUR to get to my polling place, and then spent a good ten minutes convincing the little old ladies---who've seen me at every general, midterm, and primary for the past eight yers---that I was in fact registered there. I'm so re-registering in my new neighborhood.
Permanent resident non-citizens, of whom Silicon Valley probably has many, can legally give money to candidates.
You have to be a citizen or "lawfully admitted permanent resident" to contribute directly to a campaign.
Pwned by 52, but presumably they'd be contributing in dollars, not pounds or euros.
I contribute in conscripted peasant soldiers from my demesne, same as back in the old country.
everyone is getting it! Yay! Would anyone else like to try getting it?
I can't wait to hang an out-of-business sign on the IRS's door!
I did my taxes two nights ago. More $$$ in my bank account SOON! And the Taxachusetts telefile system somehow came up with $100 more return than I had figured I was supposed to get.
58: I looked into this a couple of years ago, when we moved two blocks, but enough to flip us into a new polling place. If I remember right, so long as you're still instate, the rules about updating your residence aren't crazy rigid.
Wait, what? I moved out of one election district but forgot to register in the new one, so went back to the old one to vote. Soon, I'll register in the new district, and uh, not vote again in the old one. Promise.
Of course, I would never do such a thing, even if I were to have moved localities and not changed my driver's license and still gone back and voted in the old precinct.
I simply cannot imagine that someone who do such a thing. Shocking.
LB:
Polling place within the same electorial district is different from changing the electorial district. If you are voting for different people.....
Nope, I was wrong. You're supposed to give them a change of address form within 25 days. I wonder if the rules have tightened up since 2000, or if I just fucked up then.
So get it straight by November.
Hey Becks, if you're willing to move to CA, I'm sure people here could help you with the job thing, no hunting required.
The Board of Elections compares its file of registered voters to a file received from the United States Postal Service (USPS) of people who have submitted a change of address.
Oh, crap.
I so doubt anyone's coming after you. Fix it going forward and you're fine.
Are Republicans more likely to change their voter registration or Dems?
You mean for change of address? Off the top of my head, Ds are younger and poorer than Rs, both of which mean that they move more.
With any luck, the Republicans will be able to pass laws requiring photo IDs, proof of residence, fingerprinting and background checks in order to stop fraudsters like Jackmormon.
Yeah, well, I finally got valid photo ID, so nyuh! (Not like I brought it with me to the polls.)
71: Now that I have offspring of voting age, it is really in my face how baroque and outrageous our laws regarding voting registration are. At the end of the day it has worked out with persistence, but there are both a few real barriers and many more apparent barriers that I am sure discourage participation. (And some college towns actively trying to depress student registration does not help.) And obviously I am speaking to many with direct experience of this problem. Just one small messed up part of the whole screwed up process. Have either Clinton or Obama specifically campaigned on helping increase access to the polls?
Pardon the crassness, but procrastination is like masturbation in that it feels good while one is doing it, but later one realizes that one has only fucked one's self.