The last time I got an insufficient funds notice was in college when I knew very little about how a checking account worked and spent a little too much on clothes textbooks. It was a good learning opportunity and helped me grow into the fiscally conscious person I am today. Until today that is.
Shocked and offended by the obvious error on the bank's part, I quickly logged into my account and noticed... we have $200 in our checkings account. Oops. Big oops. I guess I forgot that the money had stopped coming in while the expenses were still being incurred. We are still racking up about $2,500 worth of consumer debt through our Costco American Express card each month, $1,500 in monthly rent and utilities, about $300 for every one of Andy's many flights for interviews and did I mention we are still paying for hospital bills around $1-2,000 and benefits incurred during my unpaid leave for the last two and a half months? I have never been more excited to receive a paycheck as I will starting November.
And I've learned not to overlook the small things and that I should have signed up for overdraft protection earlier - because at Wells Fargo, there is no fee to sign-up, just an automatic $12.50 you will be hit with (instead of $25) and an automatic transfer from your savings which we had enough money in, just did not think to transfer ahead of time. At this point, it's embarassing that we erred as such, but hopefully my mistake is a lesson to you to monitor your account (in detail, not just in aggregate) closely each month. Lesson learned (as always), but also - one should never give up and take any fee (even if it's your fault) without a fight. I called and got half of the fee reversed as if I had overdraft protection this entire time.
*sigh. I should have known. I didn't. I was too busy making homemade Halloween costumes and playing with my adorable son. Oopsie Daisy.
Ugh. We got that this week too!
ReplyDeleteI forgot about the car accident, the hospital bills, and everything else.
Stupid money.