Thanks for worrying 'bout me.

I got a couple emails, reminders, even, asking if I had taken my vitamins yet!!  One sweet woman even offered to buy me vitamins, my whole regime, if I needed them.  OMG, so sweet!?  While I asked her to pay it forward to someone in need, the thought was really, really kind.

I realize now I came across wrong -- what happened was -- a bank mishap Beth's non-attention.  My account was overdrawn by a series of automatic bill payments and several Starbucks runs.  $35 for each fee, plus all the bills = $.01 in my personal account. (Until TODAY, it's still empty.)   Mr. set up a few auto-payments on my account, and I really only watch the bottom line, and WHOOPS!  (And, I don't use ANY credit cards anymore.  I can't dig the hole deeper.)  Several hundred dollars, POOF! 

"Research conducted by the FDIC found that approximately 14 percent of bank customers pay 94 percent of all overdraft charges.

The study also revealed that many debit card transactions that trigger a fee are worth less than the overdraft charge itself."

Right.  $2.87 coffees.  Several.

TMI - but I don't know how you out there manage your households? 

I keep a separate account from Mr. MM's -- his paychecks pay the mortgage and nearly all the bills.  He's always paid the bills, he's always been the "breadwinner," even back in the days of his shit pay from Wal*Mart as a Store Assistant Manager.  (Yeah, we both worked at Wal*Mart.  Didn't you know I was a Department Manager for a whole, what, month? HATE doesn't describe it.) 

I've never been much of a source of income, my piddly jobs only ever brought in at the MOST $200 a week, and for the year I worked nearly full time, I think it was $350.  It was never enough to even bother depositing.  I would cash my check and buy the groceries.

Right now, I pay a few of the bills, the groceries, and the day-to-day things.  Keeping my account separate ENSURES that the imperative bills get paid without fail.  I fear the trouble that having a single joint account would cause.  I would bounce the mortgage with a $2.87 coffee for certain.  (Yes, I know about overdraft protection, etc, but... stuff happens.)  It's just been easier to let him pay the damn bills because he put the money in the account, and I just took my here and there income and spent it as we needed it for day to day things.  Of course this means if he was gone, I would be pretty lost about what goes where. 

In parents house, my mother paid all the bills.  She would assemble all the mail and write out checks once a month and sit and balance the checkbook.  My dad was the breadwinner  (she didn't work, at least not full time, until I was older) but he'd hand her the check and she did everything.  She still does it the same way to this day.  "I've got to pay the bills."  I have NEVER done it.  This process took her hours, but it worked.

(I'm screwed.)

On the other end of the spectrum is Mr MM's m@m, who pays the bills as they hit her hand, usually writing a check right then and there, or hopping on the phone and getting it paid immediately.  That, I would lose control of in a heartbeat.

Then, there's the folks I stand behind the post office, getting money orders for every.single.bill. 

No matter which way the bills get paid, I am probably better off this way, for now.  Even if it means I have to wait to buy new vitamins because of my stupidity OR go school shopping for the child that costs insane $ to clothe. I got everybody else done, pretty much.

Regarding the initial part of the post - don't worry about my lack of vites.  I am rarely in need.  (Thank you vitamin companies.)  I have been floating in samples for a long time, and I ran out.  I was taking Celebrate vitamins for about six full months, and samples in between.  I just honestly ran out, and when I went to purchase some (among everything else!  I found out AT the pharmacy when my debit card was declined) and my bank account screamed at me.

I dug up some Man Vitamins and took those a bit unsuccessfully, and then other random ones in the cabinet, includng the bottle'o'preop chewables I forgot I had.  I'm just taking double of those right now, and I am seriously due for a blood draw anyway before my next hematology appointment. 

But, seriously, how kind of you to even think about it.  People don't usually think about someone ELSE like that, you know?