Jewish World Review August 13, 2004 / 26 Menachem-Av, 5764
Lori Borgman
Youth cancel out (checkbook) balancing act
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
I was having lunch with a friend when she told me that she is
going to insist her college-age son begin balancing his checkbook. I
laughed so hard I knocked over my drink, fell into my salad and inhaled a
crouton.
Wanting a young person to balance a checkbook today is like Miss America
wanting world peace nice thought, but not likely to happen.
You might as well dash to the nearest pool and tell every teenage girl in
the water to put on a swimming cap. Fat chance.
Kids today don't balance checkbooks. Two out of three can't even tell you
what a checkbook is.
I asked a young lady hanging in our refrigerator if she knew what a
checkbook was and she answered, "Animal, vegetable or mineral?"
"Paper," I said. "A little pad of paper with narrow lines where you add and
subtract numbers."
"I don't do paper," the girl answered, flashing a debit card.
Why would kids do paper? Today's youth cut their teeth on plastic, learned
to type on plastic and now bank with plastic. Plastic debit cards, plastic
credit cards and invisible Pay Pal. The closest they get to real paper is
buying books online at amazon.com.
Our son has not opened a bank statement in three years. I know, because he
routinely piles them on my microwave oven. Once every six months I transfer
the pile to his bedroom. The mountain of unopened bank statements, unopened
bills and credit-card offers on his desk has grown so high it may soon need
flashing lights to warn approaching aircraft.
Once a week I venture in his room to dump his trash can, thinking some of
the paper that has gone into the room will surely come out of the room. The
only thing his trash ever contains is one Q-tip. It's a token Q-tip, his
way of making me feel needed.
Kids do everything online. They bank online, pay their bills online, and
move money from one account to another online.
I blame the banks. Their first mistake was when they stopped returning
cancelled checks. My husband, a man who lives for a paper trail, was
depressed for a year.
"Don't worry," I said. "You've still got your old tax returns, credit card
statements, utility bills and Sunday circulars."
"What about records, what about documentation, what about proof of
purchase?" he muttered. Cancelled checks are a bean counter's security
blanket. It was hard on him for awhile, then like everyone else, he
discovered cancelled checks were completely dispensable.
This was a bad move on the banks' part, it's never good to let a customer
know they can live without your product.
The second mistake the banks made was discontinuing the incentives. When I
was a kid, everybody's mother had at least two plastic rain bonnets in her
purse courtesy of the local bank. Yes, you could trust a bank not only to
take care of your cancelled checks and your savings account, but your
mother's perm.
Many bank promotions offered small kitchen appliances. I knew a woman who
set up housekeeping by opening three checking accounts, two savings
accounts and a certificate of deposit. It's been ages since a bank gave
away a toaster.
Guess what came in the mail today? A bank promotion offering a Smoothie
Maker in exchange for opening a checking account. The smoothie in the
picture is a vile green, the same color as Shrek.
Hmmmm. I wonder what age group the bank is targeting? I'll put it on the pile.
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JWR contributor Lori Borgman is the author of , most recently, "Pass the Faith, Please" (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) and I Was a Better Mother Before I Had Kids To comment, please click here. To visit her website click here.
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© 2004, Lori Borgman
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