Money OCD, really?

That was meant to be a joke by one of my friends who sent me link yesterday.

Some of my family members have been teasing me for about last 5 years that I do have money related OCD and I was thinking that it is just because they are not that good with finances and trying to make excuses in funny manner. So I played along and never thought that I do something extraordinary or unusual for responsible people. I even choose MoneyOCD as my name here thinking it is funny.

Now looking at the linked article I am really wondering do I over do it?
I have 7 out of 10 strongly presented and 2 are the border line.

I asked some friends and co-workers to rate themselves and highest result was only 4.
Now it gets me really thinking...

Population at FWF is type of people that I think more money responsible then usual croud so my questions are -

1. How many out of 10 do you have?
2. If you have 7 or above - does it affect your life in negative way and why?

10 Signs You Have Financial OCD

1. It irritates you when cashiers give you the bills back before the coins. Hello! You’re supposed to put the coins in my hand first, then the bills. Otherwise the coins fall all over the place!

2. You keep your bills organized in your wallet from lowest to highest, all facing forward and upright. How else are you going to know how much money you have and prevent advertising the amount of cash you’re carrying from everyone else? Plus, Suze Orman told you to!

3. You check your bank account online every day. Even though you balance your checkbook, you still like to know exactly which day the electric company cashes their check.

4. You always know the exact balance of your retirement accounts, even though you’re thirty years from retirement. It affects your net worth, you know!

5. You’re unable to throw out old financial records. You see, someday you might need to know your average monthly water bill, and since that information is only kept online for three months, how else would you be able to figure it out? Quicken? Well, what if your computer crashes and you haven’t backed up your files for four months?

6. When you owe someone money, you pay with exact change. When your coworker goes to McDonald’s and picks up your #9, you give him $5.26. It’s only fair.

7. You split the cost of the stamp with your roommates when paying the cable bill. Let’s see, that will be $22.16 for you, $22.16 for me, and $22.17 for Erica. Sorry, Erica, but it’s your month to pay the extra penny. Oh, and everyone’s total includes 13 cents for the stamp - well, it’s actually 14 cents for Kim and I, of course.

8. When you take your change jar to the bank, you count all the change ahead of time. You just can’t wait to find out how much money you’re going to have! Plus, now you’ll know if the teller drops a quarter on the way to the change machine.

9. You play games with your money. “Never spend a $20 dollar bill.” “Round up your transactions to the nearest dollar and transfer the rest to savings.” “Hide $50 in your underwear drawer and see if it’s still there next paycheck.”

10. You can account for every dollar you’ve spent in the past 10 years. Well, you have to keep track of your cash purchases too, because that’s where most “leakage” occurs! Plus, what better way to illustrate to your spouse that they’re spending too much money on vending machine purchases than through a pie chart in Quicken?

I got a 4. (3,4,6,10)

These are cash OCD traits. We FWFers are on another plane entirely. Some better ones for us might be:

1. You get annoyed when your buddy wants to split the restaurant tab since it means you have to pay cash.
2. You wonder why they don't list FICO scores on match.com.
3. You walk a mile to the nearest no-fee ATM for the Teen Current card.
4. You check TYN every day to see what Citi has devalued.
5. You know which branches/ATMs take SLR checks written out to the bank for deposit into your account.
6. You're a devoted member of the George Watts Montessori Magnet PTA, even though you have no clue where that is.
7. You pay all your grocery bills on $330 gift cards.
8. You check the APY thread every day, and have a formula worked out for how large a percentage gain warrants moving your money.
9. The highlight of your day is checking whether blok got insurance money for his tenant's flood.
10. The bank shuts down your account because they think the large number of coin deposits means you're running a business. One week later they also shut down your wife's account.
11. When looking to refinance your home, you strongly encourage your son to join the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard or Homeland Security.

3 (3, 4, 10)

3) I have stopped checking account balances every day (not much happens on the weekends). I might go every other day during the week, but with yodlee its easy to see everything.

4) Retirement account is in Yodlee, so I check it along with the rest a few-many times a week.

10) Don't quite have the 10 history, but seems likely i will be there. Have a solid 4 years tracked since getting my first job after college.

staci86 said: Three of those don't really apply to those who are very OCD with their money, and pay for everything with plastic for the Cash Back rewards.

Yea, I would agree on that and actually put 2 of those as border line for myself becasue I can see myself doing it but do not do that often just becasue I pay for everything with reward CC.
I am also finding myself calculating accumulated rewards for each statemnet to see if bank gave it to me right.

2,3,4,5,10
5 points!

Wow... I got a ZERO... these really are OCD-type traits and not a normal measure of cheapness/frugality/financial acumen/etc.

0

I must be not be a good FWer...

kenfeyl said: 1. You get annoyed when your buddy wants to split the restaurant tab since it means you have to pay cash.
I frequently split the bill with someone - restaurants don't mind taking two (or even more) credit cards to pay for one bill. Just try not to make it too complicated. 50/50 or "$50 on this red card, the rest on other one" works fine.

I usually take other person's cash and pay entire bill with my card, so I get annoyed when we are splitting onto two cards, but for a different reasons: less rewards for me

Also note that its just, as the author puts it, from a "... Girl Trying to Get Out of Debt and Change Careers"

pthor1231 said: Also note that its just, as the author puts it, from a "... Girl Trying to Get Out of Debt and Change Careers"

That is true and source is not that reliable. That what I thought and started to ask people around hoping to have laughs and confirm that listed activities is nothing out of ordinary.

So far we have 2 people on FWF with 5, anyone more? Please?

3. You check your bank account online every day. Even though you balance your checkbook, you still like to know exactly which day the electric company cashes their check.

With so much fraud going on lately, I feel a need to do this. It is only a matter of time until fraud hits my accounts, I feel.

I thought I was good with finance till I read this

7/10, I am apparently a very sick man.

1. bills organized in wallet: check
3. check your bank account online every day: check... hey, it's a widget alright.
4. You always know the exact balance of your retirement accounts: check, again a widget. I even keep track of the daily dollar value of accrued vacation time, of which I am too freekn cheap to use.
5. You’re unable to throw out old financial records: no... I scan them and throw the originals out. .5/1
7. You split the cost of the stamp: check, stamps are expensive.
8. When you take your change jar to the bank, you count all the change ahead of time: check, but it's a quick estimate because guessing is fun.
9. You play games with your money: check, all spending is rounded up, all unexpected little incomes are rounded down for sexy surprises!
10. You can account for every dollar you’ve spent in the past 10 years: no... only the last 5 years (only in mid 20s). Although it can be embarrassing explaining to friends the goofy, color coded "track every penny" wallet register when they see it. .5/1

Yes, it does have some negative impacts on my life. I pass on some vacations that would probably be fun, I work every second of overtime I possible can, I [involuntarily?] perform calculations looking for ways to save even insignificant amounts of money. Unexpected bills and costs can sour my mood...

But, I am getting getting better as my income/savings increases. I'm also taking Frugacil, which takes the edge off. But I have no regrets as I'm retiring at 30.

JTFH said: 7/10, I am apparently a very sick man.

1. bills organized in wallet: check
3. check your bank account online every day: check... hey, it's a widget alright.
4. You always know the exact balance of your retirement accounts: check, again a widget. I even keep track of the daily dollar value of accrued vacation time, of which I am too freekn cheap to use.
5. You’re unable to throw out old financial records: no... I scan them and throw the originals out. .5/1
7. You split the cost of the stamp: check, stamps are expensive.
8. When you take your change jar to the bank, you count all the change ahead of time: check, but it's a quick estimate because guessing is fun.
9. You play games with your money: check, all spending is rounded up, all unexpected little incomes are rounded down for sexy surprises!
10. You can account for every dollar you’ve spent in the past 10 years: no... only the last 5 years (only in mid 20s). Although it can be embarrassing explaining to friends the goofy, color coded "track every penny" wallet register when they see it. .5/1

Yes, it does have some negative impacts on my life. I pass on some vacations that would probably be fun, I work every second of overtime I possible can, I [involuntarily?] perform calculations looking for ways to save even insignificant amounts of money. Unexpected bills and costs can sour my mood...

But, I am getting getting better as my income/savings increases. I'm also taking Frugacil, which takes the edge off. But I have no regrets as I'm retiring at 30.

woo hoo
thanks a lot for input

Total 2 with score of 7 (I would consider myself an 8 due to 2 being border line)

Most of these have little to do with being thrifty and everything to do with being mentally jacked up. You my friend are mentally jacked up.

People can be obsessive/compulsive about many areas of life - exercise, food intake, relationships, cleaning the house, etc. I'm not surprised that FW would have a large sub-population of people who are obsessive/compulsive about money. (The diet forums probably have a large sub-group of folks who aren't just trying to sensibly lose weight, but are taking the whole thing to a slightly crazed level.) It's human nature, especially if paying attention to an area of life has its rewards, and you are good at it, and then it's self-reinforcing, then you start getting superstitious, etc.

---
I don't even have a change jar. I don't see the point - it's money just sitting there without earning interest. And you are keeping the coins out of the system, causing the mint to have to make more coins. But I don't use much cash anyway. The coins in my wallet probably have cobwebs on them. (I use CashBack CCS even for 30 cent purchases.)

The only thing on this list that I do is order my bills smallest to largest, face up. At one of my first jobs, as the cashier at a drive-in movie theatre when I was 14, the manager forced me to do this with the cash, and I've just done it ever since. It does come in handy when you are trying to pay for something quickly, because you know just where to grab the appropriate bill in your wallet. I lived in Europe for 14 years, and their bills are usually differently-sized, with the larger denominations being larger in size, so that also is a reason that I arrange my bills from smallest to largest - so the smaller ones don't 'go missing' amongst the larger ones.

---
My senior citizen mother officially has OCD, and she does something that hasn't been mentioned here. She is of the check-writing generation who wouldn't use a credit card to pay for many things. She is so afraid that her checkbook won't balance at the end of the month (because that sends her into a panic, and I really mean "panic") that she writes all her checks for an even amount. So if the water company bill is $77.59, she'll pay $80.00 to them. That means that all her accounts are usually in a tiny bit of credit. One company tried to fine her for doing this, but she won't stop! She also feels a huge peace of mind that she's always a little in credit to everybody, so that way if there is ever a mistake she's got a little cushion there.

She is the kind of person, who if she has to pick someone up at the airport, she'll go 3 hours early and just sit there, on the off chance that she'd have a flat tire along the way or something and would need the 3 hours to get a repair done.

It's really hard to grow up with this kind of person making the rules in the house - it's a kind of perfectionism, but one that makes little sense. When these "standards" are applied to another person, it's easy to critize them endlessly.

So I'd urge the folks here who are obsessive/compulsive about money to think twice about requiring other people to follow your practices, or when criticizing others (especially children) for being more relaxed than you are, especially if they are the ones who are being "normal" about it and you are the one being extreme.

tripleB said: I am taking it upon myself to create a new top 10 list to make this thread more applicable to the average FWFer.

1) You use Rewards Credit Cards for everything, even when you have the cash available to pay immediately.

2) You shuffle through your wallet to find the Reward Card that gives the most rewards per purchase. If you accidentally left that "correct" card at home, you hold off on the purchase until you have the "right" card.

3) You know the exact balance of any reward points on all your cards and know exactly how many dollars you need to spend to earn the next redemption.

4) You begin an unsolicited 10 minutes conversation on Rewards Credit cards with your friends when you notice them purchasing things with cash or non-rewards cards. Included in this conversation is at least one back-door method of obtaining credit union eligibility for something like Penfed.

5) You ensure ALL of your credit cards are using the same PIN number for cash advances, even though you have NEVER taken a cash advance from an ATM and never plan to. You panic when you find a new credit card does not allow you to set your own PIN.

6) You have the CCVs of each card memorized so that when a cashier looks at the back of the card and is unable to read it, you recite it from memory.

7) You have all your credit card accounts arranged neatly into Yodlee by subtype: Rewards, 0% BT, Emergency.

8) You havnt paid for anything in cash in many years and never plan to use cash ever again (excluding H&B purchases).

9) You have organized the due dates for each Credit Card billing statement to maximize their efficiency. For example, Schwab 2% rewards are given at the end of the month after the cycle closes. Thus you arrange the cycle closing date to be the 28th so that you get the rewards in 2 days. If the cycle close date was the 1st you would have to wait 30 days to get the rewards.

10) You find yourself explaining maximizing reward card usage to people who dont care and stop yourself halfway through the conversation when you realize they arent listening.

I feel bad that I have 8 of these. I only had 3 from OP's post.

2
3 (once a week),
4 (nearest $10k or so),
9 yes (never carry cash)
10 (past 12 months)

5

1, 2, 6, 8, and 9 are so yesterday. Today's someone with 'money OCD' shuns cash as a means of exchange. It's filthy dirty and covered with cocaine, and there's almost no need for it anymore. If you lose it, it's gone. If someone steals it, it's gone. It offers no extended warranty protection nor any rebates or float. Cards and EFTs are ever so much more elegant. Anyway, replace the above entries with 'would prefer cash go the way of the dodo' and I get 100%.

tripleB said: I am taking it upon myself to create a new top 10 list to make this thread more applicable to the average FWFer.

1) You use Rewards Credit Cards for everything, even when you have the cash available to pay immediately.

2) You shuffle through your wallet to find the Reward Card that gives the most rewards per purchase. If you accidentally left that "correct" card at home, you hold off on the purchase until you have the "right" card.

3) You know the exact balance of any reward points on all your cards and know exactly how many dollars you need to spend to earn the next redemption.

4) You begin an unsolicited 10 minutes conversation on Rewards Credit cards with your friends when you notice them purchasing things with cash or non-rewards cards. Included in this conversation is at least one back-door method of obtaining credit union eligibility for something like Penfed.

5) You ensure ALL of your credit cards are using the same PIN number for cash advances, even though you have NEVER taken a cash advance from an ATM and never plan to. You panic when you find a new credit card does not allow you to set your own PIN.

6) You have the CCVs of each card memorized so that when a cashier looks at the back of the card and is unable to read it, you recite it from memory.

7) You have all your credit card accounts arranged neatly into Yodlee by subtype: Rewards, 0% BT, Emergency.

8) You havnt paid for anything in cash in many years and never plan to use cash ever again (excluding H&B purchases).

9) You have organized the due dates for each Credit Card billing statement to maximize their efficiency. For example, Schwab 2% rewards are given at the end of the month after the cycle closes. Thus you arrange the cycle closing date to be the 28th so that you get the rewards in 2 days. If the cycle close date was the 1st you would have to wait 30 days to get the rewards.

10) You find yourself explaining maximizing reward card usage to people who dont care and stop yourself halfway through the conversation when you realize they arent listening.

Oh Crap!

10/10

TripleB is a visionary!