Monday, November 2, 2009

Shocking, I Know

Bad things happen when you don't pay attention to the activity in your checking account, you're spending a couple hundred extra dollars each week for a couple weeks for a ministry your church has and you've been too busy to turn in the receipts for reimbursement.

Bad things like: Whoppin', honkin', WHATINTHEWORLD!?!?!? overdraft charges on your overdrawnforacoupledays bank account.

Tonight I'm thankful for:
following Dave Ramsey's "rule" of having an emergency fund
~and~
free online account transfers.

Tomorrow I'm callin' the bank. And hittin' the books. Hard. Time to get caught up and STAY caught up.

I'm thinking of converting to hermit-ism or cave-man-ism. The lifestyle where I can take my whittled wooden spear and go catch a fish for supper, run around naked and not have to worry about clothes or bathing or bank accounts. As long as they have high-speed internet in caves so I can keep in touch with all my bloggy-friends.

3 comments:

Ann said... [Reply to comment]

I try to put things I buy for church on the credit card. My thought is that it gives me a month to get everything together to turn in and I remember that I have to turn the expense report in when I see the credit card bill. It is easy to misplace a receipt when you have had multiple shopping trips. The credit card statement helps keep me straight.

Sally said... [Reply to comment]

Ouch! I feel your pain! I hope you can get those overdraft charges stopped pronto, and get the bookwork up to date. Does your bank offer online banking? We do that. We don't get any paper statements any more, it's all online.

Also, does your bank offer you overdraft protection? We have something like that for free from our bank. I don't remember how it works for sure, but it's like you have a bank "credit card" where if you write checks for more than is in your account, they automatically put it on this "credit card" so that you aren't overdrawn. Of course, then you have to pay the "credit card" bill, but at least it's not hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees!

I hope your book work goes smoothly!

Miriam said... [Reply to comment]

Ann - that's a good idea. I've been so bent on keeping the CC for "emergencies only" that I was (am) only using the Debit Card. I will remember that next time, though.

Sally - Yes, we do have ODP (OverDraft Protection), so nothing was returned or "bounced", but they charge a whoppin' $32 fee for EACH line item that comes through in the red (took me till this morning to remember that). When I called them today, I asked if our accounts qualify for a "sweep acct", where if your main acct goes in the red, $x will "sweep" from another (designated) acct to cover it. Thankfully we DO have a qualifying acct, and I'm going to set that up next time I'm in town! THAT only costs $5 per "sweep." (And we wouldn't have to pay anything other than the $5 fee since the extra money is ours anyway.)