I don’t know if I’ve said it yet, but saving for an around the world trip is both exciting and stressful at the same time. When you’re thinking about the possibilities of traveling to certain parts of the world, you know that every last dollar is important. As you can tell, I’ve taken hold of that thought and have been doing as many things possible to pinch those pennies, because let’s be honest, those couple bucks can easily extend a stay from a day to week in some exotic locations.

The exciting part of saving comes with the realization of how much I can achieve in life when I put my mind to something. I have been able to set a goal, a non-traditional goal, construct a plan to achieve that goal, and actually follow that plan through to the end. Even more exciting is the realization of how in control of my future I really am. I’ve always been somewhat of a dreamer stuck in a traditional life pattern: do good in school, then move on to do good in work… just work-work-work while following the standards. When I was in high school, I used to dream about moving to Australia for a year before going to college (what people call a gap year in other parts of the world was unknown to my circle of family/friends). Everyone thought I was nuts and wrote it off as another one of my dreams. “You should just go to college right away.” I hated it. I hated being told I couldn’t do something because they just thought it wasn’t the “correct” path for me to take. I ended up just going to college right away, but my dream remained in the back of my mind, waiting to make a reappearance.

The stressful part of saving, however, is also apparent. I always set my goals high because it makes me work harder, and thus, achieve more than I would otherwise. This high goal has caused me to be a little too obsessive and concerned about money. I now understand the value of a dollar, but with that comes a tragedy every time I have to dish out a little more money than I was expecting. With this in mind, I bring you the story of bad banking.

I used to have a small, online business, and since I’ve started saving for the trip, I haven’t had time to focus on that… so it is closed. I cancelled anything and everything that goes with that, except for my small business checking account with National City. There was literally $3 left in the account and on my list of things to do (to do: cancel bank account), but I just haven’t gotten my silly ass over to the bank to do that. To make matters more interesting, I still had the account address at my mom’s house in East Peoria, so of course all my statements mail there (I think you know where this is going).

Not a big deal. This was not a big deal because everything pertaining to that account besides the account itself had been closed.

Or, so I thought.

I went to visit my mom this weekend, and in the process picked up my stack of mail that has piled up over the weeks since I last visited. I was cleaning and organizing the apartment yesterday (the landlord is showing it on Tuesday to a prospective tenant) and I opened my mail from National City. In it was a lovely little letter that read a little something like this:

“On 03/28/07, there was not enough money in your National City checking account to cover the debit items we received that day.”

My immediate thought was that someone got a hold of my account numbers and went charge happy. I took a closer look:

Debit: $9.99      Action: Paid/Acct Overdrawn      National City Fee: $34.00

It turns out that GoDaddy.com decided to automatically renew an email account I had associated with the business (even thought I *thought* I cancelled that a few weeks ago, but, alas, not 100% sure) for a measly $10, and since I had $3 in my account, it brought me to a grand total of $40.00 in the hole. I was so angry!

I know, I know. Only $40, what’s the worry?!

I look on further and read the fine print. Brace yourself:

“If an account is overdrawn and remains so for more than 4 consecutive business days a $8.00 continuous overdraft fee will be charged each day it is still overdrawn.”

Take a second to think about it. This happened on March 28th. Yesterday was April 15th. I am cheapo Brooke who wouldn’t even spend $30 on a camera charger because it wasn’t deemed necessary.

My hands got a little tingly; my stomach dropped. I reluctantly log into my online account to see that this tiny $10 mistake turned into a whopping $112 burden. Normally, this wouldn’t make me feel so crummy, but I have been working so incredibly hard (2 jobs) to get that $112, and there it flew, out the window. I broke down and started crying with frustration.

Brian helped to alleviate the situation. We went to get some cash to put into my account and cover the expenses, and tomorrow I am definitely going to close out that account. I still can’t believe that daily overdraw fee - no thanks National City. You may offer free small business checking, but charging over $100 for a $7 error hardly seems right. Nay, I say! Nay to National City!!!

And that, my friends, is a lesson in *bad banking.

*bad banking refers to both my lack of upkeep on the account, and national city’s outrageous overdraft charge.