My $33 Mistake

by admin on July 30th, 2009

The Stupidhead Award - Licensed via Creative Commons - http://www.flickr.com/photos/quixado/3426523803/ Ugh. I logged into my business checking account today and found myself staring at a -$53.00 balance! I had very stupidly moved all of the money except for $1.00 into a savings account and had forgotten that a $20.00 check was still outstanding. Stupid stupid stupid! The bank then happily tacked on a $33.00 overdraft charge.

I should really start balancing my checkbook.

But I won’t.

It’s true. I’m a personal finance blogger who doesn’t actually bother balancing his checkbook. Once a month, I just review all the different accounts I have, put enough money in my checking account to pay everything off, move everything else to a savings account, and forget about it until the next month. What’s funny is I always add a buffer of at least a few hundred bucks in my personal checking account to make sure I don’t overdraw it by accident and for the occasional ATM withdrawal. But for some reason, I had never done that with my business checking account!

Ah, well. Lesson learned. I transferred what I owed along with a small buffer for any future stupidity.

Sometimes, it costs $33 to learn an important lesson. In the scheme of things, $33 is at least not that much in comparison to, say, $33,000 in tuition.