My Expenses, 3 OCT 2008
So I thought I was safe with putting the $200 in my account, but I wasn’t quick enough. Sometime (a few hours??) before the $200 was deposited, a check to my church came through and left me about $15 short. I was charged a $25 fee, which completely sucks but I deserve it.
Here is my spending for October so far:
Gas: $53.00
Car Tax and Decal fee: $89.38
Bank fee: $25.00
Income: $0
Expenses: $167.38
Net Effect: -$167.38
My Good News
Whew! I checked my bank account this morning and found out that Discover DID get the $200 into the account, so I won’t bounce anything! As soon as I get other money transferred into my account, I’ll pay off that $200 so I won’t get stuck with all that interest.
My Stupidest Move Yet
Holy Crap.
I knew that I was running out of money and I still did some stupid things. Rather, I didn’t do SMART things…like think.
1. I forgot to cancel my $100 automatic withdrawl from my main checking to my ING Orange Savings account. This morning I initiated a transfer of $470 from that account to my main checking, but it won’t post until Thursday. I couldn’t touch the $100 that won’t be available until Monday.
2. I didn’t pay attention to my automatic bill pay, knowing that my bank account would be low when my rent payment posted. I have two payments for a total of $262.72 scheduled to go out tomorrow and it’s too late to cancel them. In my bank account right now? $97.16.
3. I went to the Discover card website to request $200 (at a ridiculous APR) to be put into my checking account immediately…but who knows when it’ll really get there? I’m willing to pay the fee since I’ll bet that it’ll be lower than a bounced check fee from the bank…which still could happen.
I can’t believe how thoughtless I was; I’m never like this! I access my banking portfolio several times a week…almost obsessively! The real problem is that I’ve always had money available and so it’s never been a problem.
I kind of want to cry, but I won’t. What’s done is done. I’ve done what I can to rectify the situation and it will either be successful or it won’t. The bills that are causing the problem are my loans; my student loans and the car loan to my parents. The car loan doesn’t have a penalty if it’s late and I can still get the student loans paid within the grace period once my funds are all deposited.
I’m just feeling like a failure, but maybe this is what I need to start changing.
My Mistake
Yesterday I began freaking out because I thought that I was going to be short enough money for rent and things (if I didn’t close out my money market account and use that cash). I didn’t know how I could have made such a mistake. From what I could tell, I thought that the $1000 I’d just contributed to an IRA had already been taken out of my checking account, but it hadn’t. So I was quite surprised to see just how short I was. I was incredulous that I had allowed this to happen.
Fast forward to this morning when I logged in to Bank of America only to find more than twice the amount of money in my checking than it had had yesterday. I saw that I’d made a similar mistake from before.
Both times I forgot about the lag on money transfers between accounts from different banks. I transferred money from my credit union account to Bank of America and the money was taken out almost right away, so my portfolio showed the new balance for the credit union, but did not show anything pending for Bank of America. So I forgot about the money or subconciously assumed that it had already transferred over. Even after I’d already made the mistake about Vanguard, it never occurred to me to look around and see if I made any similar mistakes. This could have saved me a lot of stress and time. It also almost made me impulsively close my money market account.
I find myself to be ridiculously impulsive. It probably stems from my ridiculous laziness; it would take so much time to make a thought-out decision that it’s easier to decide something quickly and go for it. Sometimes this leads to regret, but mostly it works for me. It’s also something that my boyfriend likes about me; if a decision needs to be made quickly, I can make it. The problem is that there are some decisions that don’t need to be made so impulsively. Like closing the money market, for instance; I was all set to close it today only to find that it’s unnecessary. I would have done something foolish for the sake of getting it done as quickly as possible.
So now I find that I am close to fine for the next month or so until I get a few more paychecks. And that tax refund and tax rebate. Once I get those, I can really start building my savings.
