I'm on my break at Starbucks (hoping to finish this blog within ten minutes so I can fit in a nap on my 30-minute break) after a particularly harrowing hour decoding our new cash handling procedures.

Using Starbucks' many notebooks and training materials lately has me thinking about whether or not this obsessive organization could have a positive effect on my personal finances.

When I think about my finances, I get short of breath and feel my stomach tightening. Money (and lack of it) is like this huge, murky cloud -- I'm frightened of it, and I don't understand it. It's kind of like financial dementors* are closing in on me, and the only way I can fight them is to run from the problem ... because, if I turned around and faced it, it would completely overwhelm me. (What would my patronus be? Not a stag like Harry's or even an otter like Hermione's ... I think it would be a turtle. A turtle carries its home on its back, which is an ideal symbol of the Cheap Women project. Unfortunately, it's also depressingly slow ... which is another way it mirrors our contest, which seems to be fraught with setbacks and lethargy.)

At work, we use cleverly organized notebooks for everything from cash to whipped cream counts. I've been thinking about making my own leger with a run-down of all my finances in it, so I don't have to go back and forth from my bank statements to my checkbook to my credit card bills, etc. etc. Here are some things I think it would need:

Pocket for receipts
Check register
Savings account register
All credit card account info
Personal loans (borrowing $20 from a friend, etc.)
Monthly bill lists (including addresses or websites, etc. for paying)
401K & stock info (and, no, I don't have these ... but I'm working toward them)
Cash intake and expenses
Student loans

I feel like it may help to be able to look at one simple notebook and know that everything was inside. It might seem more manageable and less scary. A system like this might already exist. Probably a computer program does, at least. I wonder if I'd be disciplined enough to use a computer program? It would have to be one that gives you cupcakes when you're finished inputing data.

I'll keep thinking. Until then, I plan to ignore my troubles and sit around imagining the epic battle between Turtle Patronus and American Express.

* This is an extended Harry Potter analogy. For those of you who aren't familiar, a patronus is sort of a spirit animal that you conjure in order to fight trouble, specifically dementors, which are evil beings that literally suck your soul. And, yes, I know that it's lame to make Harry Potter analogies.