I Love My Bank!

I had one of those eye-opening experiences with fraud yesterday that made me really appreciate my bank. I used my debit card to purchase a footlong meatball sub at Subway on Wednesday afternoon. That evening I attempted to use my debit card at Target and it said it was denied. Dealing with a screaming 2 year old and the fact that I was already flustered I just assumed I had punched in my pin number wrong and used another card to pay for my purchases. Yesterday afternoon my blackberry died in between my home and my work destination. Knowing it was my only link to the "outside" world I stopped at a Radio Shack in one of the towns on my way to get a car charger. Again, my debit card was denied. Now I was getting slightly more than annoyed, and while bad-mouthing the bank under my breath paid for my charger with another card and went on my way.

After arriving at my aunt's house I called the bank. I was getting more steamed as I tried to navigate through the voice-command prompts to get to a customer service woman. Finally, I was connected. Thankfully I remembered that this poor woman was not the person who was denying my card and I calmly told her what my problem was. Her response was this...

"It looks like there was a charge attempted with your card for 4,352 British pounds to a car sterio outlet in Great Britian. We flagged the card for fraud and denied the charge."

I WAS FLOORED!!! That's well over $9,000! All I could say was "Thank you, thank you, thank you. We dont' even have that kind of money!" The final result was they canceled my card and will be sending me another. They are also watching the old card for any additional attempts at charges.

I was so thankful that the bank was that astute to notice that a charge of that magnitude was well outside of our "normal" spending. I am also glad that the charge was denied before it ever went through. I can't imagine the horrible mess that would have caused with overdraft fees, etc. not to mention all the identity theft issues I would have to deal with.

I rarely use my debit card for transactions that are not immediate, and I never use it over the computer. I have a strong suspicion I know where the "suspect" got the number, but because I strongly support the "innocent until proven guilty" mantra, I will not say on this blog. However, it just reinforces my paranoia about identity theft and credit card fraud. I am always careful to check all credit card statements weekly and our bank accounts daily. I shred anything with identifying information on it, even junk mail. I get our free credit reports 3 times a year. Any still it isn't enough, but I do feel better about why I do these things (and I proved to Patrick that I am not obsessed!).

So thank you bank, for all that you do to keep your customers safe, happy, and loyal.

5 Years!

Today Patrick and I celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. Our wedding day was absolutely perfect. We had a beautiful ceremony, great food, and an awesome reception. I am one of those lucky brides who was perfectly happy with every part of my wedding, and I wouldn't change a single thing. I hope to watch our wedding video sometime soon...I have actually never seen it. I just remember how happy I was and how great I felt marrying the man of my dreams.




We continue to enjoy life together, writing new chapters together. I pray for many more and at least as much fun in the next 5 years as the last 5 have been!

Business travel is only great because...

Once again I am on the road for business. This time I am attending a grant writers conference (snooze) in our state capitol. Patrick and I both travel a LOT with our jobs. To give you an idea, my car just turned one year old and has 30,000 miles on it. I hate business travel. I hate being away from my husband and my baby. When Morgan was younger I didn't do nearly as much travel because I could use Morgan as an "excuse" to stay closer to home. That is obviously no longer the case. I am pretty sure by now you know that I hate business travel.

HOWEVER......there are a few great things about business travel. I will list them in order of importance to me:

1) a king size bed ALL TO MYSELF! I love the fact that I can lay in the middle of the bed, stretch out my arms and not touch the sides of the bed or anyone/anything else. And I have SIX pillows (ahhh, heaven). To understand why this is so great you have to understand my normal sleeping arrangement. My husband, our dog, and I sleep together in a full bed with 4 pillows. (Yes, we sleep with our dog. No it was NOT my idea. She is a small dog. But she is a dachshund so she is a very LONG dog with a penchance for sleeping diagonally in our bed. Please don't feel the need to comment on how sad it is that two grown adults battle a 13 pound dog over bed space. I know it is sad. It's our life :) And on extremely rare occasions of night terrors, Morgan joins us. So this much space is just amazing.

2) Access to unlimited hot tub usage. Given the fact that absolutely no conference provides comfortable chairs to their participants who are expected to sit for 8 hours straight and the fact that I have a condition/disease/disorder (I am not really sure which category it falls into) that makes me live in pretty constant pain from my mid-back down through my toes, a hot tub is the next best thing to a free massage. At 29 years old, my doctor tells me that I have pain equivalent to being over 70. My disease, or whatever it is, creates extreme pain in my bones, muscles, and joints. Sitting in the car for long periods of time, sitting at conferences, and having to walk alot or stand for many hours at a time (while staffing an exhibit table for example) only makes the pain more crippling. 15-20 minutes in a hot tub does wonders for tired, aching body parts. It's not long, but having access to that allows me to minimize pain meds, which for me is very important.

3) Finally, business travel is great because I have a fantastic excuse to eat out. In fact, in most situations, that is the ONLY option for food. If you could see my waistline (and for those of you who have) you would know I LOVE to eat out. And when I eat out, I don't eat out healthy. It's an extreme problem, I recognize that. But just as with smoking or any other long-time habit, it is hard to stop. Business travel gives me a) money to eat out (something we really don't have or shouldn't be spending on) and b) reasons to eat out. Maybe some day I will get to the point where I ONLY eat out on business travel. That's my 5-year plan. For now, I will just enjoy it while I still can.

One thing I always seem to forget when attending business conferences is this: cute shoes do not always equal COMFORTABLE shoes. And one would think that as a person who has fairly moderate levels of pain in her legs I would be most cognizant of what I wear on my feet. Hey, I never said I was a smart woman! I think I need to put a sign in every suitcase I own that reads "Have you thought about your feet today?" Again, as with eating out, it's self-inflicted pain. But I think this one will be easier to correct.

So I will end this ridiculously long post by going to lay in my king size bed, surrounded by multiple pillows, having just left the hot tub, and think about what's for breakfast....haha just kidding. I'll be thinking about lunch (breakfast is in the hotel).

Good night!

Isn't Technology Great?

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Charity

In such a money-hungry society where your social status is decided on the clothes you wear and the cars you drive, it was so nice to read this story. Just wanted to share. Makes me think that there are certainly ways our family could cut back, even to help pay down our debt. Perhaps that will be my "project" this month.