It’s all about the Benjamins…or lack there of
I hate money…I think I may have started a post this way before.
We pooled our resources last week and got our mortgage paid up to next month. Yipee! Now, while we had that money in our bank account, waiting for the Alabama housing folks to grab it out, we thought we had a few bucks to get gas…buy cleaning wipes…grab breakfast at McDonalds…so on. I mean, when your bank account has more than 3 digits in it, you get excited now days.
We were wrong. So suddenly that $5.00 box of wipes cost us $35.00. That $3.37 McMuffin cost us $33.37…and it wasn’t even that good.
Not only did the few little things cost us so much more because of ever fees…they are now eating into this week’s paycheck by leaps and bounds.
“This month’s insurance hasn’t come out yet” Sarah informed me upon closer examination of our account….so more money coming out of a negative account…awesome.
Let’s see…things to help us out.
No non necessary purchases…check
Cutting our eating out to almost nothing…check
Not going to or renting a moving in….ever…check
2nd job…check and check
Here is out issue in a nut shell…NSF charges have taken the GNP for a small nation out of our account this year. I’m grateful that they cover our lack of money tracking ability, but DAMN!!! 30 bucks on a $3.37 purchase? AND, at one point I entered a check for a couple thousand…yes…and they held it for 4 days….and we had things clear and cause that to dwindle in NSF charges. When I checked, they had the funds confirmed on the 2nd day, but their policy allowed them to hold it out of our account for up to 5 days…bastards. AND, why don”t they allow the little things to clear before the large on a daily basis. If, for example, I have a $2000 in the bank and a $1999.99 check hits the same day as 7 McMuffins… I was hungry…let the seven clear first. Instead of collecting 7 NSF charges, let me get hit by 1 for the big check.
So, anyway. We are overdrawn…our fault. We may be after my paycheck this week because of CRAZY fees from the bank…their fault. We are not default on anything, or having collectors at our door, but it sucks a lot.
And it sucks.
July 31st, 2009 at 10:32 am
Been there done that!
1. Call the bank, they might waive some of the charges if you haven’t done this too many times before.
2. State Farm can suspend your bank draft up to the day before the draft date. Call your agent, they should do it.
3. Change banks, Colonial was holding my paychecks for 3 days and said the only way to avoid was for my job to do automatic payments. Well, since there are only 3 of us that isn’t an option… I changed to Redstone and they NEVER hold my checks.
Good luck, keep your head up! We’ve been there done that!
November 21st, 2009 at 2:58 am
Yeah, I’d be looking at another kind of bank or credit union. Banks suck.
Here’s hopin’ a year from now you have your health, you have your house and you’re looking back at ‘09 saying “Phew, we made it”. Somehow, someway, you will.