I am so DONE of BofA.

So, I posted the other day about how I overdrew my checking account. Anyway, my $100 autotransfer from my ING account posted yesterday, so I was positive again. I needed cash for lunch, so I went to the bank. I took out some cash, and I asked the teller (my friend, L) if there was going to be any overdraft charges, because I was unsure of the timing of the transactions. She said that there were no charges, because my account never went negative. GREAT! Nothing to worry about, right?

Anyway, later that afternoon, I went for a snack run and I used my debit card, because I wanted the cash on hand for lunch. I have money; there's no problem.

Today, I get in to work and check my email, and there's my daily balance email. -$32! What the hell?? So, I logged in to online banking, and sure enough, there were two $35 overdraft fees from yesterday. And looking at my balance over time on the website, my account never went negative! So, I printed out the transaction listing and such and marched down to the bank, fuming.

I went to the teller (my friend, B) who I hope to god can tell me what's going on, so I don't have to deal with the stupid bosses (E & D). Anyway, B tells me that I'm going to have to talk to E to figure this out. GROAN!

I show E my printout and ask her what's up. She says "Have you overdrawn your account before?" What the hell does that have to do with today? Yes. I have, but not for a long time. I've been good. She looks at my sheet and says "Here, your balance is negative." She's pointing at a transaction for -$5.30. I point out that she's looking at the transaction amount and show her the balance column. By now, we've made it back to her desk, and she looks more at the sheet. And says, "Oh I see what's going on."

She tells me nothing. Anyway, this is getting long. She looks me up in the computer, and she can't find anything that's not on the paper I have. Meanwhile, my friend, L, come out, because she recognized my voice. And the two of them look through the computer. Then, the big boss (D) comes out and joins us. Oh my god! All I want to know is what's going on with my account!

L explains that I was there yesterday and she said that there was money there. And D says, "No, you can't do that. You NEVER tell a customer their balance." WTF? Why not? Her explanation is that there could be pending transactions that aren't on the screeen, and L says that the screen on my computer is the same screen that we're looking at now. And that's the balance she told me. And D, reiterates that there could be outstanding transactions that don't show up. UGH.

All the while about ever 5 minutes, E or D ask me, "Do you write things down?" Um. Yes. IF I KNEW WHY I HAD THESE FEES, I WOULD NOT BE AT THIS SHITTY BANK!

Anyway, the long and the short of it is this. When you use your debit card, the bank puts the money on hold. If you keep taking out money, the holds queue up. Well, all my transactions from the weekend, queued up BEFORE my auto-transfer for Monday. So, Monday NIGHT (why they clear at night and not in the morning is beyond me) when they cleared, I was overdrawn for that INSTANT between the transactions. Thus, fees were assessed. HOWEVER, fees take two days or so to appear! So, L didn't see any fees when I asked her yesterday.

So, I'll admit that according to these backasswards rules, the overdrafts are my fault, and I'll accept any fees. I just wanted to go to the bank to figure out what happened, because I never saw an actual negative balance.

Anyway, then a huge argument between L and D erupted. L said that they should credit the fees, because it was her fault that I used my debit card yesterday, because she told me that I had money (because the computer told her I did). D said that she's not responsible, and I have to pay the fees. Anyway, I was so pissed at the end of this, I just gathered up the papers and said that I had to get back to work. I was so tired of being talked down to and yelled around. D says to me that she'll put $35 in my account. And I said "Thanks, that'll put me positive today, but I'm still going to get fees for yesterday's transactions that are now overdrawn because of today's fees." And I just stormed out. I told my teller friend, B, that I was **this close** to closing my account and that I hated BofA and that the only reason that I still had it was because the bank is in the hospital and it's convenient. She smiled and said that she understood.

So, I get back to lab, and I check my balance again online. And there's a $70 "counter credit", which I think is from when E tried to refund the fees in the beginning that didn't work. I grab my phone to text L and ask what's up. And there's a text from her saying that D put $70 in my account. I thank her, and she replies that she cried and pleaded with her and that's why. God, I love her.

Anyway, over the course of the day I started looking around for new banks. I talked to coworkers and friends online. I still haven't made up my mind completely OTHER than, I don't want any BofA accounts any more. NOT because of them charging fees that I "deserve", but because of their shitty/non-existent customer service. I'm not stupid, and I don't like people treating me like I am. Even L told me later that she didn't even understand what was going on in my account, and she said that E and D talk to all the customers like that. WTF? How do these people stay in business?

Unfortunately, it's the end of the month, so I can't change anything until after I'm sure that I get paid my direct deposit. But come September, I'm so breaking up with BofA.

Anyone have any suggestions? It seems from talking to people I know that ING and Wachovia are pretty good.

Monday Blahs

UGH. I was so bad. Every morning, BofA emails me my checking account balance. I set that up years ago to help me keep track of what's going on with my money (or rather, when I get low on funds). On Friday, I had about $160. Today, I have -$12!

What went wrong? Well, I had preordered House Season 5 from Amazon when I noticed it was at $0.025/min. And I COMPLETELY FORGOT about it. I spent money on things at Target and Best Buy over the weekend, and on Sunday, I still had money. But Amazon charged me for House today, and my $100 auto-transfer from savings hadn't come in yet.

Grr. This was completely avoidable, and I feel so stupid. I haven't overdrawn my account in a long time. I think I need to stop preordering things.

New Goals

I finally got off my ass tonight after work to sit down and work on my finances. As depressing as it is, it does feel good to reassess the situation and get some goals in place for the next 9 months.

First off, my Quicken file for my checking account does not match what BofA says online that my balance should be. I have no idea what's missing, but there's money there. Luckily, I took out $275 cash from my checking account back when that whole debit card drama was going on. This was supposed to be cash for visiting a friend of mine in the city (who was there on a business trip), but those plans fell through (kinda luckily). So, I've been using that cash for just about all my purchases for the past couple of weeks. I do plan to print out my transactions since my last statement and double check the Quicken tomorrow.

Basically, I revamped my goals for the next 9 months tonight. There are now two sets of goals (short term and mid term). Short term goals are for the end of this year: getting my savings accounts beefed up and paying down credit cards and loans. The mid term goals are paying off my taxes (both state and Federal) before April 15, 2010. I'm well on my way for the state taxes. Federal is going to take a lot out of me to get it done, but I know that I can do it. The big pull on the Federal taxes is going to be filing my 2009 return as soon as I can. If I'm going to get a refund, all of that will go to paying down my 2008 balance. But, I was able to get myself onto a payment plan, so I'm hoping that will get all this finished sooner.

Of course, the MAJOR goal here would be to live within my $100 per week without using any credit cards and still working towards these new goals. I'm sure that it'll be tough, but I'm used to tough. Really, I just need to get off my ass and motivate myself actually to do this. I think I can.

The new rule of DVDs (a work in progress)

So, I posted last week about my purchase of Eureka DVDs. I shared my wonderful purchase and my idea of limiting myself to $1/episode for DVDs with a friend of mine. He teased me, of course, for being silly, and then I showed him my spreadsheet for calculating the cost per episode. He LOVED the idea. But suggested an improvement.

He asked me what the cost of my new DVDs was per minute. After a quick update of the spreadsheet, I was able to tell him that for both DVD sets together, it was 2.3 cents/minute. VERY reasonable.

This conversation lead to the new DVD rule. I can only let myself buy TV Show DVDs if the cost per minute is less than or equal to 3 cents/minute. I think that this is a very reasonable rule. A season of about 24 hour-long episodes for a cost of about $25 is a good guideline.

I have already figured out that this rule will not be able to movies on DVD. It's too difficult to find 90 minute movies for $2.70. But, with Netflix, I've found my impulses to buy movies has been greatly diminished.

We'll just have to see how well this rule works. But so far so good. I just realized this morning that I could preorder House Season 5 on Amazon for 2.5 cents/minute. So, I'm going to spring on that right now. But as with everything, I'm going to have to have some enforced moderation.

Fun for Cheap

Yesterday, SS4BC and I went with my friends J&L to Six Flags. OMG! So. Much. Fun! But, amusement parks are known for sucking the money out of your in exchange for said fun. However, I think the way that we handled it was perfect.

We got discount park tickets through L's work ($25 each). Parking was $15. We rented and shared a large all-day locker ($16). We managed to get a large, good lunch for about $15/person. Plus, instead of getting lots of drinks all day long, we splurged for the souvenir cup ($13), but it came with free refills all day! So that $13 covered all the drinks for the rest of the day for all four of us. And that's all it was for spending for me. L got a snack at the end of the day and shared. And for some reason, adrenaline or excitement or the heat (who knows?), none of us were hungry for dinner.

So, total cost for me at one day of awesomeness: $51 (Plus, an extra $28.75 for me, because I paid for SS4BC's ticket and parking for her birthday)

Seriously, not bad. We would have paid around that much per person just for tickets at the gate!

The downside of living in a region of the country where the park isn't open year round (curse you WINTER!) is that it's PACKED as all hell in the Summer. And Six Flags capitalizes on this by offering "Flash Passes". For a tiny fee of $159, you and a friend can skip ahead to the front of the lines for the big roller coasters at scheduled times. If money were no object (dare to dream), I would have been on that like screams on a little girl, but I was totally okay NOT spending an extra $159 to wait in line for about an hour. Really, on one line was totally horrible in the grand scheme of things. And judging by the facts that (1) I can't talk today, (2) my face is sunburned, and (3) I'm totally sore, I'd say that we had an awesome time!

Now to relax today enjoying a lazy day with SS4BC and recuperate from all that fun.

UGH. Procrastination SUX!

It's the 11th. August has totally been a huge suck on the motivation department, and I was late paying bills this month. Along with that, I have yet to balance my checkbook or enter any of said bills into my Quicken. I'm sitting here tonight sweating on my couch with the Quicken open on my PC, but I have yet to do it.

What's dragging me down? Why can't I just do it? I think that part of me is worried about what the balance will be at the end. But I really shouldn't.

UGH. I need to find some motivation. I'm dying to turn on the air conditioning, but I don't think I should.

It's just too damn hot!!