Whoopsie.

Hypothetically speaking... have you ever accidentally paid a major bill a week before payday?  You know, like a week before payday?  You know, a huge one that requires the installation of a paycheck into the account before you pay it?

No, me neither.

Still speaking hypothetically here....

Daughter is taking concurrent enrollment classes at the Community College this year.  She will be spending the first half of her day at the high school, and the second half of her day at the college.  Our county requires us to pay a fee for these classes.  So, for 2 college level classes, I am paying $600.  For 6 credit hours of classes, I am paying $100 per credit hour.  Not a bad deal.  It's significantly less than I would be paying if she was enrolled full time in the school, or if she were at a 4 year institution. 

As soon as our last payday rolled around, I went and wrote a check for her bill.  Paid it in full.  It put a crimp in our finances, but I had been expecting it, and had cut back on spending in July so about half came out of savings, and the other half came out of the last paycheck.  Once you took out the mortgage, and the other bills, that left us with a little less than $500.  More than enough for groceries for the first two weeks of the month, more than enough to pay cash for gas, and enough to go purchase her textbooks.

Now, in reality we pay our bills online.  I can set payments up ahead of time, and our bills go out with very little trouble.  We had a few issues for the first month after we went to electronic bill payment, but we have not had any issues since then.

Now, hypothetically speaking, let's say we had a bill that was due on the 18th, and our next pay date is the 15th.  Let's pretend that I set the bill to "pay the full balance" which was around $600.  Let's also say that I didn't pay very close attention to the "pay by" date and just hit submit.  Let's also say that since I didn't set the date, the bill went out on Friday.  LAST Friday - the 8th.

Yeah... have you seen the math here yet?  $500, I went grocery shopping, we've put gas in the cars - twice - and then, a $600 payment comes rolling out of the account.

So, the bank pulls what we have left in checking and savings and the emergency savings account and pays the bill.  THEN we get hit with an insufficient funds fee, and THEN we get hit with the transfer fee....

Saturday morning, I look at the checking account and realize that we are down to -$35.  Yep, MINUS money.  Savings and emergency savings have been wiped clean.  The bank has a mandatory balance in each savings account that we are not allowed to go below if we want to keep earning interest and not incur additional fees.  So, yeah... no money.

Hubby and I pulled the loose coins out, took them to the bank Saturday morning, and lo and behold- we had $40.  Our balance was now up to $5.

And then, we did what we were hoping not to do.  We went ahead and cashed in the EE savings bonds that we had set aside for daughter's college.  We had paid $600 for her tuition, and this is what the money was set aside for.  These credits at the community college will transfer directly into college, with none of the question or uncertainty that you can get from the AP Scores.  Her English 102 class will transfer as English 102.  The Community College even took her AP Language Credit and gave her full credit for English 101.  So, when she goes to college next year, she will be transferring in credit for English 101 and 102.  Freshman English - DONE!!  So, yes, this is the very purpose of those savings bonds. 

Our checking account is now back where it should be.

Good thing, too, because 2 other checks that had been in the wind for over 2 months cleared yesterday.  I'm really going to have to start writing "Void after 90 days" on my checks.

So, hypothetically speaking.... you should always check the PAY BY date on the electronic checking.  And then double check it... just to make sure the money is going out when you think it should.

Good thing this is all hypothetical......