Expense Report #36

Have you ever lost track of how much you had in your bank account? I haven't balanced my checkbook in five years or so, but thanks to online account access I always know exactly how much is in my account, except for those rare moments when I forget to check for a couple of days.

I'd paid my rent, I'd paid my credit card bill, I'd paid the cell phone bill, but I didn't think about how much was left. Friday evening I went to an ATM and was told I couldn't have that $100 I wanted because I didn't have funds in my account. Turned out I had $54 left in there, and another week until the next payday. Oops. At least I was able to take out $20 to pay for the meal and drinks I was about to have.

Sometimes I have small stashes of cash around the house, but not this time. I had two scratch tickets with $5 prizes in my bag, and enough stored on my ID cash card to get coffee from the cafeteria each morning for the rest of this week. The hospital cafeteria finally started taking credit cards a few months back, so that's how I paid for my lunch today.

I had tried to do the right thing and had paid more toward my credit card balance than I usually do, but in doing so I carelessly left myself depleted for almost a week. And I'm getting a little old to be running out of money between paychecks; I need to get serious about paying off this balance.