He’s making a list.
He’s checking it twice!”
Surely you’ve heard the catchy tune about old St. Nick checking his list
of presents for little boys and girls!
As I walked through the mall this past weekend, I was amazed at all of
the Christmas décor already up!
We even purchased one of our Christmas gifts for family over the
weekend, and upon doing so began the spiral into embracing the “Most Wonderful
Time of the Year!” This
morning, I couldn’t help but chuckle when I thought of the financial truth Santa
Clause teaches us through his sweet little song.
About a month ago, my husband surprised me by taking care of
all of the details ahead of time, and whisking me away for a surprise overnight
retreat in Atlanta to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary! He had secured tickets to the Broadway
Musical, “Wicked” which was conveniently playing at the Fox Theater, made
reservations for an incredible restaurant for us to eat dinner at, and reserved
us a room in a lovely hotel in downtown Atlanta! 5 years later…he’s still just as much of a romantic as ever!
The following week, I was at home balancing our checkbook,
and noticed a charge on our credit card that was incorrect. The hotel that we stayed at, charged us
several different times, and because my husband cashed in our credit card
points to pay for the room, I knew the charges were incorrect! We called the hotel letting them know
of the mistake, and after several days of watching the charge sit on our
statement without movement (or a refund being credited!) I wrote a letter to
the C.E.O. Within hours I received
an email back, asking for my phone number so that the hotel manager could
contact me and remedy this terrible error. After a brief conversation with the hotel manager all
incorrect charges were refunded, and a certificate for a free-nights-stay was
mailed out to us for use sometime in the future! The charge was far from intentional in the first place, but
this hotel went above and beyond to ensure our own satisfaction with their
company and this particular hotel.
(To which we were most grateful, of course!)
Why do I share this story with you, you may ask? Simple. I share the story to remind you of the importance of
balancing your checkbooks and checking your credit card statements. Although this charge was incorrect,
unless I would have noticed it and brought it to their attention, the hotel
would have never refunded the charges.
In our wonderful electronic-age, banks and other financial
companies make it EASY to miss these kinds of errors. We just get
going and going, paying bills, buying groceries and spending away without
realizing exactly where our money goes, and double checking to be sure that the
correct charges have been taken out of our accounts. We let the “automatic system” do it’s magic and errors are
made by accident. As the holiday
season approaches, and swiping that “magic card” becomes more and more often,
be sure you’re clutching those receipts and double-checking the charges on your
statements when you get home. No
one is perfect and so mistakes are likely to be made. I challenge you not to allow these mistakes to go unchecked
in your accounts, however. It’s
time to start not only making your list, but “checking it twice.”
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