Stupid Tax: Overdraft Fees
I am embarassed. After celebrating how far we’ve come on paying off our last debt, the truck note, I logged into my local account online yesterday and saw OVERDRAFT FEES! That’s right, I bounced two autodraft payments.
It’s my own fault. I just wasn’t paying attention this week because of an organic chemistry test yesterday and local politics (which I still haven’t blogged about here). I wasn’t keeping track of exactly when my autodrafts for my son’s school tuition, my central heat maintenance plan, or my tiny puny Roth IRA deduction were coming out.
This lack of attention originally cost me $62. Not the most I’ve ever paid in stupid tax, but after scheming on how I could pay off the truck note as quick as possible, that suddenly seems huge. And it’s just downright embarassing! For the record, “stupid tax” is a Dave Ramsey-ism that describes when you do something stupid that costs you money. Yup, this one fits the bill.
Once upon a time I used to bounce checks and payments regularly. Almost a year ago I swore I would never incur another overdraft fee again. So much for good intentions!
I sheepishly went into my banker’s office and asked if I could get the fees waived. I told her it was purely my fault for not paying attention, it was stupid, I had no intention of ever doing it again, and that I had promised over six months ago I would never do it anymore. She checked my account history and said they could waive one of the overdraft fees as a courtesy, but it could not become a habit. I thanked her for that, because honestly I didn’t expect them to waive either fee.
So, I have paid $31 dollars this week in Stupid Tax. Just this morning, I came clean and confessed it to hubby. I figured if I could work up the nerve to admit my failure here to him … well then it was good enough to blog about here. I goofed. I’m embarassed. I played my account balance too close. The most embarassing part is I have had over $300 in small checks sitting around the house this week, waiting to be deposited … but I thought I had enough “cushion” to not need a trip to the bank until I passed it yesterday on my way to work.
I guess there are three morals to this little story: One, don’t play your account balances TOO close to the edge when you are scraping up every last dollar towards the goal of killing off debt. Two, don’t wait around to deposit money when you have it and it belongs in the bank. Three, it never hurts to ask your banker if they can waive a fee when you do goof up on rare occasions.
