Several months ago, I could not get my checking account to balance.
My check register said one amount, and THE BANK said another amount.
THE BANK said I had
$145.00 more than my check register said I had.
Could it be
TRUE?!?
I went back through my check register and re-added, and re-subtracted all the deposits and debits for the previous several months and did not find any errors - I STILL ended up with the same balance that I was showing in my check register.
(These kind of discrepancies almost make me go BONKERS!)
Something my friend, who used to work at a bank, once said came to my mind;
"The bank balance is right! The bank's not going to make an error." (Something to do with scanning all the routing numbers, account numbers, and using high-tech calculations.)
So, going off of
that.....fortunately, the difference was in MY FAVOR - and I just added that amount into my register.
Cha-Ching!
THEN tonight, again, as I was going through my checking account, I found the balances were OFF again!
THIS TIME, the bank said I had
$375.00 more than my check register said I had.
It couldn't be
TRUE twice, could it?!? I couldn't be
THAT fortunate, could I?!? My friend says THE BANK isn't wrong, so it
must be my money.
So, again, I double checked, and triple checked all the addition & subtraction I had done in my register over the last several months since the last "incident." And again, I STILL ended up with the same balance I was showing in my check register.
How could it be?
I started to really wonder if the "Christmas Elves" were secretly padding my account. I've heard of that happening with
other people before.
How exciting!
Cha-Ching!
But, I pulled up my online banking and carefully looked through the list of transactions, and saw no "mystery deposits." THE BANK would have to show these even if it was an anonymous donation, right?
(AGAIN, These kinds of discrepancies practically make me go INSANE! I'll spend
hours on it trying to figure out the error. I like the Math to work out just perfectly.)
Should I just add the extra money into my register and
let it go?
No. I
HAD to figure it out. It was after hours, so I couldn't call THE BANK - I would have to figure it out on my own.
I did have one check, still in my possession, that I had written out, but hadn't actually given it to the corporation I was paying, yet. But, it's amount did not equal $375, so that wasn't the answer.......
.......but it
DID get me thinking.......Were there other checks in this same situation? Checks that I [unknowingly] still had, or the corporations still had, or had been dropped, taken, lost, forgotten in a pocket somewhere?
Frequently, I will write out my
tithing check sometime during the week, and then I set it in a certain place on my desk, ready for Matt will pick it up on Sunday, so he can submit it with his
tithing/donations check when we go to church. He keeps all the receipts, so when I asked him if he has submitted all my checks, he went back and looked through his receipts. He found there were "gaps" of time where there weren't any checks from my account. Strange, because I wrote a tithing check EVERY month.
Long story short, we scoured my whole desk; lifted up the computer keyboard, the mouse pad, computer tower & monitor, the lamp, the speakers, went through files and stacks of papers, etc.
AND we found
THREE checks that were "hiding." Checks that had somehow fallen back behind the computer equipment and were out of sight. Including one dated back in July from when I first discovered my "bonus" $145.
So, THE BANK really was right.....my checks just hadn't ever cleared. But, they
WILL when we
MAKE SURE to give them at church on Sunday, and my account balance will be quite
unexciting once again.
So, unfortunately, the
FANTASY of the "Christmas Elves" is over. It was good while it lasted! ;)
Instead it was a case of inattention, distraction, and disorderly confusion.
