Psychologists talk about the stages of grief. They don’t talk about the stages of checking your bank balance after a weekend, which is the same journey, just faster, more frequent and with contactless.
Here’s the process. You’ve been through it. You’ll go through it again on Monday, and every Monday after, until your estate is a bank app nobody has the password to.
Stage One: Avoidance
It starts with the hover. Your thumb floats over the app like it’s a hot stove. You open the weather instead. Then the news, which is worse. Then a game you deleted in 2020 and reinstalled for exactly this kind of emergency.
You tell yourself you’ll check later, “in the right headspace”. The right headspace doesn’t exist. You’ve been looking for it since your first overdraft.
Signs you’re in Stage One:
- You’ve moved the bank app inside a folder called “Utilities”, inside a folder called “Misc”, like burying a body you’re still paying for.
- You’ve got 14 unread notifications from it and you’ve decided they’re marketing. Three are not marketing.
- You’ve said “I’m sure it’s fine” out loud. Nothing you have ever said out loud has been less true.
Stage Two: Bargaining
Something forces your hand. A direct debit. A friend asking for their share of dinner, again, politely, for the third time.
“Okay,” you whisper. “If it’s above a certain number, I’ll cook all week. Slightly lower, I’ll cook Tuesday. Below that, I’ll accept whatever happens and never buy another candle.”
You use Face ID, which feels cruel, because it’s looking you in the eye while it happens.
Face ID on a banking app is just your phone making you watch.
Stage Three: The Forensic Scroll
The number is lower than expected. It’s always lower. Nobody in history has opened their bank app and said “oh good, more than I thought”, except on the day of a tax refund, and even then the tax office wants it back by spring.
So you investigate. You scroll like a detective at a crime scene where you are the victim, the suspect and the getaway driver.
- “$4.50, coffee shop.” Fair. Needed that.
- “$4.50, coffee shop.” Different day. Different struggle.
- “$4.50, coffee shop.” Same day. Three coffees. Your heart is doing something it’ll mention later.
- “$38.99, unknown merchant.” A meditation app you signed up for during a stressful week. It has billed you calmly every month since. It is the only thing in your life with a consistent practice.
- “$61.20, restaurant, 11:52pm.” You remember the restaurant. You don’t remember 11:52pm. Something called “sharing plates” happened, and you paid for everyone’s sharing.
Stage Four: Outrage
Now you’re angry. Not at yourself. That would require accountability. You’re angry at society, at prices, at the coffee shop for charging $4.50 for hot bean water.
“How is everything so expensive?” Valid question. The answer is that someone, somewhere, is making a fortune from your outrage, and they will never know your name. The bank app shows a cheerful pop-up: “Explore our savings goals!” A cartoon piggy bank waves. The piggy bank has a better pension than you. The piggy bank is also, technically, empty.
Stage Five: Acceptance
Calm arrives. You’ve seen the number. You’ve survived the number. The number is part of you now, like a tattoo you didn’t choose.
You close the app with a small, mature sigh. From tomorrow, things will be different. You’ll make coffee at home. You’ll cancel the meditation app. You’ll stop sharing plates, which are a scam, because you never get the good bit.
Then, to celebrate this new chapter, you open a food delivery app.
The cycle is complete. It begins again Friday. It will keep beginning until the account is closed by a relative with a death certificate and a very long hold time.