“THE PROBLEM WITH AUTOMATIC”
Sure its nice to have a car with an automatic transmission. Just shift it into gear and Zoo-om! It is also nice to have your bills paid automatically from your bank account…unless you forget about them and they start to charge more over time.
That is what happened to me several months ago. Over time my automatically paid bills where charging me more for this or that and the sad thing was, I didn’t even know until I had racked up a -$1139 bill ever single month! Ouch! I thought to myself the usual stuff people probably think of at times like these. “What the hell!?” The bills come in, the bank pays for them and charges our account for fees etc…every month the process continues. And on top of that came those really late bank statements each with their own bills for insufficient funds. Amazing my credit remains good.
It was heartbreaking and an eye opener for me. I quickly renewed some of my fast loans to quiet things down; there were four of them in total and I sat down to investigate the matter with a magnifying glass and into great detail I might add.
My start of my investigation took me to the bank, which I was lucky enough to personally meet the bank manager who was very helpful. You see, I am not the primary person to the bank account, so I was never given access to the bank account so that I could keep a better eye at it through on-line services. She logged me in and gave me a code so I could precisely do that. In the past I have had no such luck.
My investigation into past withdrawals and deposits led me to realize that my automatically deposited bi-monthly paycheck had shrunk from my usual $898 to just $630 dollars. Furthermore, my spouse who would also deposit $900 dollars at the same time in the past, was not depositing that amount any more. She had been depositing $680 at max for a very long time. In my defense, the rising cost of healthcare in the form of Health Insurances and I had bought a laptop and pad for our little girl for school, which was been charged to my paycheck every time I got paid and before it hit the bank. Furthermore, I had taken out a loan from my 401 K saving to go on a vacation the past year. It all added up to my shorter paycheck and since it was deposited automatically; I never knew until now. On my spouse’s side…she just likes money in her pockets. I don’t blame her; who doesn’t like money in their pockets?
That alone is a difference of $488, I had to find out where the remaining $651 dollars have being going to. During the past year our phone company, our cable, and other bills had grown to account for the $651 dollars. Now that remained was how to get out of that hole, which I knew was going to get deeper given enough time. I refused to renew bigger loans to catch up, instead I talked to my boss at work. I would quit work long enough to collect the remaining 401 k balance and use that money to pay off as much bills as I possibly could. I would no longer have extra money taken out of my paycheck and I would simply pay the required 30% tax to the tax man at the end of the year. It is the plan to date.
The problem with automatic payments can be catastrophic, but as long as you are totally in control and keep track of spending it can be a great time saving tool. What are your thoughts on this? Keep in touch to see what my plans are and how I intend to beat the -$1139 dollar hole, even up with it, and start taking control of my horrendous dept.
“THE PROBLEM WITH AUTOMATIC” Time is a wasting…See you soon.