Minor things that bother you

[kphoger]

I sure as hell would not leave a stamped piece of mail containing a personal check in my home mail box for the postman to retrieve.

meh

That's our rent check every single month.  Clothes-pinned to the outside of the mailbox.

[kkt]

Another bother: charities that send out "your annual renewal" reminder letters. No charity, I'm not a member of your organization paying annual dues. Yes, I might contribute again sometime this year. But not right now. It'll be my time decision, not yours. And if you bug me too much, I might just decide to give my money to someone else this year.

Charities that send "annual renewal notices" about every five months.

[Amaury]

About two months ago, Photo Legacy's Video Editor, the program I use to edit my drive videos, decided to randomly start frequently crashing and just closing without warning. No error message or anything. I upload clips before saving the whole video, and I'll be playing a selected clip and then try to skip ahead to where I need the end point to be for the clip since I don't need to watch the whole thing, and when I do that, it crashes. Other times, when a clip is done saving, before I have a chance to do anything other than close out of the Photos Legacy video player that plays the clip I just saved, it crashes. Et cetera, et cetera. It's not every single time, but it's frequent enough.

I can still get things done, but it takes twice as long. Case in point, I'm working on my drive to Salem, Oregon, back on the 29th right now, and it's taken me a couple hours to try to save the clip for "Welcome to Salem," because I sometimes separate long clips into two or more separate parts. I keep only getting the first part saved before it crashes. So, I'll clip out the whole thing, then separate it from there to equal length parts. For example, a 60-minute clip becomes into two separated exactly 30-minute videos. I'll cut out the last 30 minutes, and when it gets done saving, undo that (CTRL + Z), and then delete the first 30 minutes this time and save the second 30 minutes. Unfortunately, whenever it crashes, CTRL + Z no longer works, because it loses that data, just as if you had closed the program normally. So, I have to redo everything editing-wise, because I always edit out any non-driving time, such as when I'm stopped at a park within my drive destination to take photos.

I'm so annoyed right now.

[1995hoo]

....

Also, I do not trust sending checks thru the mail. I sure as hell would not leave a stamped piece of mail containing a personal check in my home mail box for the postman to retrieve. I understand the fears of accounts online getting hacked. But make no mistake: thieves steal regular physical mail too. Here in Lawton we've had at least one or more incidents of people stealing entire post office mailboxes right off the curb side. Fraudulent checks is a pretty big racket.

....

This happened to my mother a year or two ago. She had never used electronic bill payment because when he was still alive, my father was absolutely against doing so for reasons that have never been clear to me. (She took over paying the bills when he had a mild stroke and spent several months in the hospital about 17 years before he died. He recovered, but she continued to handle the bills.) Then she had a check that disappeared. She always mails things at the post office, never in her home mailbox, but one of her insurance companies never received the premium payment. So she put a "stop payment" on the original check, sent another, and it got resolved. Then a month later the original check surfaced when someone submitted it for payment—altered to show a check for around $15,000. The bank didn't pay it, of course. But after that, my mom switched to electronic bill payment.

Of course there are still some creditors that won't accept electronic payments, so your bank has to mail them a check. That can cause its own problems. My wife is fighting with a creditor over a check that was properly sent by the bank but that disappeared when the creditor's office in Texas got shut down during one of the hurricanes.

[SEWIGuy]

I have about 20 automatic transactions a month, either charged to my credit card or my bank account, ranging from bill payments to IRA contributions to charitable gifts, and never once have I thought this was risky. And that doesn't count the one-time payments for medical bills or something similar.

It feels like a lot of y'all are spending a ton of time working around something that isn't actually much of a problem.

[Bobby5280]

There is a lot of modern media that requires advanced knowledge to fully enjoy.  Comic book movies and shows are infamously bad at referencing stuff that only readers or comics will actually get.  A spoiler video recap prior to watching stuff like that honestly enhances my enjoyment.

A movie's plot and pivotal story turns should not depend on making viewers do any prior reading to understand it. I don't mind obscure references or "Easter eggs" included in movies or TV shows.

Comic book movies can be notoriously bad at screwing up a story that previously existed in comic book form. The Uncanny X-Men in the 1970's was one of the best ever. Chris Clairmont, John Byrne and Terry Austin were one of the best writing/artwork teams in comics. Those issues inspired me to get better at drawing. Anyway, the Phoenix Saga was the high point of that era and is revered by many long time comic book fans.

Two different attempts were made from 20th Century Fox to put the Phoenix Saga into movie form. There was X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006 and Dark Phoenix in 2019. Both movie attempts sucked ass. One big reason is they weren't true to the original material. All sorts of stupid changes were made. The revisions didn't pay off at all. Long time X-Men fans were pissed. It also didn't help that 20th Century Fox allowed one of the writers of The Last Stand to both write and direct Dark Phoenix. Both of those failed Phoenix attempts resulted in the end of those two different X-Men franchises.

Another problem with the Phoenix story is that it's too big to cram into a single 2-hour movie, much less be reduced further to a parallel plotline with other shit in a movie. It might work better as a 10 episode mini series on Disney+, but the production budget would be too big for TV.

There are rumors Disney/Marvel wants to reboot the X-Men. I don't know if they should bother; I think a lot of people are pretty burned out on super hero movies. Plus, they just haven't been very good lately. Marvel was on a hell of a winning streak in the 2010's, culminating in the two Infinity War movies. Then they hit a slump and haven't been able to dig out of it. Hopefully Captain America: Brave New World turns out to be decent. But, since movie reviews are still "embargoed" just 4 days from the movie's release it doesn't make me feel very optimistic.

[Scott5114]

I have about 20 automatic transactions a month, either charged to my credit card or my bank account, ranging from bill payments to IRA contributions to charitable gifts, and never once have I thought this was risky. And that doesn't count the one-time payments for medical bills or something similar.

It feels like a lot of y'all are spending a ton of time working around something that isn't actually much of a problem.

Yeah, see, if I let all of the transactions go automatically the account would go negative pretty quickly. Bills get paid when there's money to pay them—usually every two weeks, not when the calendar says it's the Xth day of the month.

Using a credit card isn't an option because they charge an extra fee for that.

[SEWIGuy]

I have about 20 automatic transactions a month, either charged to my credit card or my bank account, ranging from bill payments to IRA contributions to charitable gifts, and never once have I thought this was risky. And that doesn't count the one-time payments for medical bills or something similar.

It feels like a lot of y'all are spending a ton of time working around something that isn't actually much of a problem.

Yeah, see, if I let all of the transactions go automatically the account would go negative pretty quickly. Bills get paid when there's money to pay them—usually every two weeks, not when the calendar says it's the Xth day of the month.

Using a credit card isn't an option because they charge an extra fee for that.

I'm paid monthly so it's easier for me, and I get that. When I was paid bi-weekly, I had a schedule put together where I used our monthly savings goals as a buffer. And I have my two largest charges, my mortgage and my credit card bill, paid about two weeks apart so they were rarely being paid by the same paycheck.

And I don't pay anything with a card where there is an additional charge - unless I volunteer to pay it in the case of my church.

[JayhawkCO]

I have about 20 automatic transactions a month, either charged to my credit card or my bank account, ranging from bill payments to IRA contributions to charitable gifts, and never once have I thought this was risky. And that doesn't count the one-time payments for medical bills or something similar.

It feels like a lot of y'all are spending a ton of time working around something that isn't actually much of a problem.

Yeah, see, if I let all of the transactions go automatically the account would go negative pretty quickly. Bills get paid when there's money to pay them—usually every two weeks, not when the calendar says it's the Xth day of the month.

Using a credit card isn't an option because they charge an extra fee for that.

I'm paid monthly so it's easier for me, and I get that. When I was paid bi-weekly, I had a schedule put together where I used our monthly savings goals as a buffer. And I have my two largest charges, my mortgage and my credit card bill, paid about two weeks apart so they were rarely being paid by the same paycheck.

My company just went from semi-monthly to bi-weekly, and it definitely makes it slightly more of a challenge for the auto-pays.

[thenetwork]

In regards to paying bills online versus snail-mailing a check, I do all my bill-paying online. It is a rare occasion I fill out a paper check anymore. About the only time I do that is when going to the DMV once a year to renew my tag.

I agree it's kind of a PITA to deal with 2-factor authentication when logging in to pay a bill. But I'd rather the extra step be there than not. A phishing site isn't already going to have your smart phone number. So there's some piece of mind to be had with that. It also takes me less time to type in a security code from my phone than it does to manually fill out a paper check.

Another big advantage of paying online: the payment gets posted much faster than it does via snail mail. You can pay on deadline day and still avoid a late charge. Most credit card companies, utility companies, etc have their online payment systems set up where payments can be scheduled. I have a few accounts, such as my natural gas bill, set up for auto pay. When mailing checks you always have to give a few days worth of time for the check to arrive and get processed.

Also, I do not trust sending checks thru the mail. I sure as hell would not leave a stamped piece of mail containing a personal check in my home mail box for the postman to retrieve. I understand the fears of accounts online getting hacked. But make no mistake: thieves steal regular physical mail too. Here in Lawton we've had at least one or more incidents of people stealing entire post office mailboxes right off the curb side. Fraudulent checks is a pretty big racket.

I really don't like it if I have to receive something like a new credit card into my home mailbox. I ordered a new copy of my birth certificate recently (to get a proper Real ID driver's license). New Mexico's records dept would only send it to my home address. Delivery instructions said my signature was required for delivery. Well, the damned postman left the UPS Next Day Air envelope right on my front porch step. Anyone walking by could have stolen the thing before I got home from work.

Spoiler culture. Last night during the game an internet community I'm in asked users to censor their discussion of the game for those who were going to have to watch it later. It just seemed silly, if the game means that much to you, then the onus should be on you to not put yourself in positions to be spoiled, not on others to not discuss it.

It may be one thing to talk about the outcome of something like the Super Bowl. Someone talking about the results of a game I missed isn't going to bug me.

But I think it's a real dick-move for anyone to spoil movies or TV shows. I couldn't give a tinker's damn about a person's bragging rights of seeing a movie before I did. And if I'm really interested in seeing that movie I'm going to vastly prefer seeing that movie rather than hear some guy tell me the good parts in it. His account will infinitely less entertaining. It won't have the actual production value of the movie.

If I see a movie and I didn't like it and one of my friends asks for my reaction I'll just say I didn't like it. I won't go into spoiling the actual moments of the show.

It shouldn't even be a big effing issue to openly discuss a live program or sporting event as it's happening.

Discussing a program that takes a few hours to air across the whole country should not be discussed immediately, unless you incorporate some sort of "Spoiler Alert" before the actual discussion.  But it should be "no holds barred" after at least the entire Continental US had the opportunity to see it.

[Rothman]

I get paid bi-weekly.  I have all sorts of automatic payments.  I just keep track of what hits my checking account and credit card when and budget accordingly.  Pretty simple.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I think it's a real dick-move for anyone to spoil movies or TV shows. I couldn't give a tinker's damn about a person's bragging rights of seeing a movie before I did. And if I'm really interested in seeing that movie I'm going to vastly prefer seeing that movie rather than hear some guy tell me the good parts in it. His account will infinitely less entertaining. It won't have the actual production value of the movie.

If I see a movie and I didn't like it and one of my friends asks for my reaction I'll just say I didn't like it. I won't go into spoiling the actual moments of the show.

I mean I do acknowledge there's a difference between a once-live event like a sports game and a show/movie/video game that will be much more spread out as to when people access it. I don't condone being a troll ruining things for people, I just think if someone is actively trying not to be spoiled, it's silly to be perusing social media where it's likely people will be talking about the things they're trying to avoid.

[formulanone]

I think it's a real dick-move for anyone to spoil movies or TV shows. I couldn't give a tinker's damn about a person's bragging rights of seeing a movie before I did. And if I'm really interested in seeing that movie I'm going to vastly prefer seeing that movie rather than hear some guy tell me the good parts in it. His account will infinitely less entertaining. It won't have the actual production value of the movie.

If I see a movie and I didn't like it and one of my friends asks for my reaction I'll just say I didn't like it. I won't go into spoiling the actual moments of the show.

I mean I do acknowledge there's a difference between a once-live event like a sports game and a show/movie/video game that will be much more spread out as to when people access it. I don't condone being a troll ruining things for people, I just think if someone is actively trying not to be spoiled, it's silly to be perusing social media where it's likely people will be talking about the things they're trying to avoid.

We have a policy at a motorsports board I'm semi-active at which states 5 days before spoilers in any other thread, and no thread title spoilers whatsoever. It used to be easier to avoid certain websites or sections of websites/forums if you didn't want spoilers. And that's a lot harder to do today; you basically have to avoid all forms of social media to avoid discovering things you didn't want to know in advance. Unfortunately, meme culture crap spills out on movies and TV shows, and sometimes into all sorts of other phenomena, but I really don't watch enough of anything to care that much.

Still, it's always been a problem; back when Sixth Sense came out around 1999, a roommate of ours stalled for about two months before seeing it, so a bunch of us were set to go re-watch it with him that evening (the rest of us had already seen it). We were all watching TV during breakfast and some morning TV news personality basically spoiled the whole movie in about fifteen seconds as point they were making... 

[kphoger]

Yeah, see, if I let all of the transactions go automatically the account would go negative pretty quickly. Bills get paid when there's money to pay them—usually every two weeks, not when the calendar says it's the Xth day of the month.

Using a credit card isn't an option because they charge an extra fee for that.

I'm paid monthly so it's easier for me, and I get that. When I was paid bi-weekly, I had a schedule put together where I used our monthly savings goals as a buffer. And I have my two largest charges, my mortgage and my credit card bill, paid about two weeks apart so they were rarely being paid by the same paycheck.

I get paid bi-weekly.  I have all sorts of automatic payments.  I just keep track of what hits my checking account and credit card when and budget accordingly.  Pretty simple.

OK, so basically, SEWIGuy and Rothman have never lived paycheck-to-paycheck.

[Bobby5280]

Still, it's always been a problem; back when Sixth Sense came out around 1999, a roommate of ours stalled for about two months before seeing it, so a bunch of us were set to go re-watch it with him that evening (the rest of us had already seen it). We were all watching TV during breakfast and some morning TV news personality basically spoiled the whole movie in about fifteen seconds as point they were making...

I remember "the big surprise" in the 1992 film The Crying Game getting spoiled in a TV "news" article before I had a chance to see the film. The 1993 Oscar nominations were an additional spoiler.

Regarding The Sixth Sense, anyone spoiling that movie needs a donkey-punch in the bits. That's one of the best mind-f***s ever.

A movie theater forum where I participate has a movie reviews section. There are rules like no spoilers in the review title and any spoilers in the body copy of the review itself have to be contained in a "spoiler" tag that has to be clicked to make visible.

[jeffandnicole]

This happened to my mother a year or two ago. She had never used electronic bill payment because when he was still alive, my father was absolutely against doing so for reasons that have never been clear to me. (She took over paying the bills when he had a mild stroke and spent several months in the hospital about 17 years before he died. He recovered, but she continued to handle the bills.) Then she had a check that disappeared. She always mails things at the post office, never in her home mailbox, but one of her insurance companies never received the premium payment. So she put a "stop payment" on the original check, sent another, and it got resolved. Then a month later the original check surfaced when someone submitted it for payment—altered to show a check for around $15,000. The bank didn't pay it, of course. But after that, my mom switched to electronic bill payment.

A year or two ago, my wife had to pay her annual fire inspection payment for her shop.  I figured I'd just run the check up to the firehall.  There was no one at the fire hall, and no drop box or other spot to place the check.  Prepared for this, I also had everything with me to mail it, and the post office was the next block over.  Placed check in envelope, put address and stamp on it, and dropped it in the mailbox...never to be seen again.  It never made it to the fire hall, and has never resurfaced.

[Scott5114]

Since my accounts are all new at this house, the first bill for each was mailed to me before I could change over to electronic payment. It sort of bothers me that the payment address for the Las Vegas Valley Water District is in Phoenix, and the payment address for the City of Las Vegas Department of Finance (the sewer bill) is in Los Angeles. I mean, I get that they contract out payment processing to someone, but...maybe the city government should be helping the city economy by at least paying someone here in town to do it?

(This isn't just a Vegas thing. Norman's water and sewer bills had you mail payment to Dallas. That made a little more sense, though, since Norman isn't a very big city in the grand scheme of things.)

[Scott5114]

Regarding spoilers...they don't bother me. I actually kind of appreciate knowing "twist endings" in advance so I can be on the lookout for foreshadowing that I might otherwise miss, without having to consume the work a second time.

[Rothman]

Spoilers are of the devil...or at least, very terrible people that must have been through some sort of unresolved trauma and therefore find a miserable sort of comfort in seeing joy ripped from others.

[kphoger]

My '02 Ford Focus has a spoiler.

[kphoger]

(This isn't just a Vegas thing. Norman's water and sewer bills had you mail payment to Dallas. That made a little more sense, though, since Norman isn't a very big city in the grand scheme of things.)

Still, though.  Keep in the same state, at least?

[J N Winkler]

Regarding spoilers:  I sit on the fence.  I consider myself mostly (not totally) unspoilable.  While I try to respect others' desire not to see spoilers, I'm apt to steer clear of discussion spaces that rigidly enforce a no-spoiler policy because that is more of a hassle than I am willing to deal with.

Regarding timing of bill payments:  One of the recurring staples of household finance advice is to pay this month's bills with income earned last month (or earlier).  This is naturally much easier to do when not living paycheck to paycheck.  When she died in 2011, my grandmother left behind notebooks summarizing the monthly bills that went back all the way to the 1950's; she and my grandfather relied on them to time bill payments.

[Scott5114]

When she died in 2011, my grandmother left behind notebooks summarizing the monthly bills that went back all the way to the 1950's; she and my grandfather relied on them to time bill payments.

This is actually a fabulous idea—part of what has tripped me up since converting to online payments has been that I don't have a reminder that a bill is unpaid in the form of the envelope sitting on my desk. I may have to steal your grandmother's idea.

I don't suppose you still have them, so I could see how she formatted the notebook, would you?

[SEWIGuy]

Yeah, see, if I let all of the transactions go automatically the account would go negative pretty quickly. Bills get paid when there's money to pay them—usually every two weeks, not when the calendar says it's the Xth day of the month.

Using a credit card isn't an option because they charge an extra fee for that.

I'm paid monthly so it's easier for me, and I get that. When I was paid bi-weekly, I had a schedule put together where I used our monthly savings goals as a buffer. And I have my two largest charges, my mortgage and my credit card bill, paid about two weeks apart so they were rarely being paid by the same paycheck.

I get paid bi-weekly.  I have all sorts of automatic payments.  I just keep track of what hits my checking account and credit card when and budget accordingly.  Pretty simple.

OK, so basically, SEWIGuy and Rothman have never lived paycheck-to-paycheck.

??? Yeah I have. But I've been paid monthly for almost the entirety of my career so setting aside the money at the beginning of the month for payments and sticking to weekly spending goals has been how we have managed our finances. Unexpected payments always happen, but that's why I would set aside money to save as well. And if I had to use credit, I would pay off ASAP if I couldn't all at once.

But there were definitely times that the last week of the month meant a lot of "creative" meals and the like.

[Rothman]

When she died in 2011, my grandmother left behind notebooks summarizing the monthly bills that went back all the way to the 1950's; she and my grandfather relied on them to time bill payments.

???

People don't do this naturally in our American capitalist society?  I mean notebooks are just the precursor of spreadsheets and I keep a spreadsheet that lays out my expenditures and projects them against my income.  Basically a checkbook ledger, but extending into the future.  Been doing that since I had to be careful of overdrawing years ago.  If you don't know where you stand and where you're going, it's hard to manage your own money.