Debit Cards

This weekend just gone I broke my own rule of using cash wherever possible. I went through a honeymoon period with my debit card some years ago, but those days of sponatneous spending and care-free money management are long gone. Or at least I thought they were.

The problem with using cards is that I lose track of what I'm spending and, more importantly, my Internet bank account doesn't accurately reflect the status of my finances. With so many other aspects of my life in perpetual uncertainty, I like to keep my finances in order - I like to know what's going on. In fact, I've noticed that I've begun keeping lots of menial aspects of my life in strict order, to near obsessive compulsive levels, but that's another story (or, possibly, another hate).

Anyway - if I use cash I know exactly what's going on. I can take £50 cash out of my account at lunch time and ten minutes later, back at work, my Internet bank account shows that withdrawal and the affect it has had on my overall balance. Nice, ordered finances. Debit card purchases, as I'm sure you're aware, may not show up for a few days. And when they do you get a day or so of teasing before the true horror of your frivolity is revealed. My account currently looks something like the following example, which I have simplified for the purposes of demonstrating my point:

Balance: £400

Available to spend: £150

That's £250 of, in my eyes, un-accounted-for cash. What the fuck have I been buying?

I know that in the next day or so all will be revealed, and I will suddenly remember that new exhaust on the car, but I hate this not knowing. I feel violated by my own money mis-management.