sweetfrenchtoast

It’s a rainy, grey Monday today…the kind of day that makes me want to slide into some flannel pants and lounge on a couch all day drinking hot cocoa and watching daytime talk shows.

But no…I’m here at work. It’s not such a bad place to be since it is, after all, what I do to get a paycheck. And after creating a budget this weekend and vowing to record every single penny I spend in an effort to get my finances back to where I want them to be, I am thrilled to have a job and to be here earning a living!

I wanted to briefly mention something that happened with one of my credit cards. I try to pay all my bills online, and for one of my credit card companies, I had set up a recurring payment to be sent through their own online bill management center. I always send more than the minimum, and I had broken my monthly payment into two halves—one to send at the beginning of the month, and one to send at the end of the month—so that I could save a little interest by reducing my average daily balance. Everything was working fine until last month, when they got my second payment three days late. They charged me a $35 late fee and snatched back a great promotional interest rate I had on a balance transfer. I was miffed and confused when I saw this on my statement, and in my renewed focus on my financial state, I decided I had to do something about it.

I gave them a call and spoke to a woman who was actually very nice. (Not that I expect the reps to not be nice…it’s just that I would imagine there comes a point when you’ve heard one too many people complain about their late fees and your niceness level drops a tad.)

She reversed the late fee and got someone from their bill management center on the phone. When I asked her if my promotional rate had expired or if it had gone up because of the late payment, she confirmed it was because of the late payment. I reminded her that I was using their bill payment service, and it should not have been late, and asked her if there was any way to fix it in a desperate voice. She put me on hold for a moment before coming back to tell me that she had reinstated my promotional rate and credited my account for the additional interest charges from the last month. Yesss!!

Anyway, just wanted to share that little success. Had I noticed this a few weeks ago when I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I probably wouldn’t have bothered calling and would have been kicking myself later when I realized how much additional interest I was paying. But now that I seem to be getting back to my normal (i.e., mentally stable) self….