Both of my paychecks arrived in the mail, so I finally got around to driving over to the bank and handing them to a teller. While I’m too modern for most old-fashioned interactions, financial or otherwise, I have to say I enjoy going to a bank and depositing my checks.
I found with direct deposit, I stopped paying attention to when money was going in… and when money was coming out. For some reason, actually filling out a deposit slip and asking the teller to put it into my checking account feels, well, it feels like my monthly celebration (albeit in my head) for all my hard work. It makes me feel like an adult, perhaps.
In any case, these days I don’t have a direct deposit option. At least now the reason for this makes sense. At my first salaried job the company didn’t do direct deposit because the whole company had money problems and the big boss was afraid of paying everyone’s paycheck at one time. Yea, I’m kind of glad I left that company.
Nowadays, though, as a freelancer, it’s even more unlikely for a company to offer direct deposit. And that’s fine. Even though checks are easier to lose or to forget to deposit, they’re still getting something on paper for all your work. That paper isn’t worth much until it’s turned into a bank, so many would say my desire to be paid by check is absolutely ridiculous. Still, it’s kind of nice, to go to a bank, when they’re not busy, and wait for the transmission of money to take place.
Slowly down that process maybe helps me slow down on my spending too. Just a bit.
I hate going into the bank–I use ATM deposit whenever I get a paper check (rare). I used to kind of like getting and paying bills, because it made me feel like an adult. That wore off quickly 🙂