Overdrafts

Last week our joint checking account was -$562.00 (yes, negative), with our savings -$168.00. I literally scavenged in my house to find 4 dollars (all in change) so that we could put a smidgen of gas in the truck.

I work from home. My job is an online store and it does pretty well. Although we rely heavily on my husband's income, I floated us out last month financially...well sorta. The rent still has to be paid, and that is in my husband's hands. My husband owns his own land development company. He has certain land deals that are supposed to pay us at the beginning of each month, however, we have yet to receive payments  for the month of August. Which is how we pay our rent, vehicles and the big things.

Anyway, my husband wrote a check from one of his personal accounts ( that had very little money in it) and deposited it into our savings account (which had positive $1.48). He did this so he could pull out more instantly and put gas in the truck. We later found out that the check bounced, which was followed by a lovely overdraft charge of $33.00.

When I went to check the checking account, I was expecting it to be positive because I  transferred money from paypal to  my checking. It was still negative! I could not believe it. So, I finally figured out my online banking password and went online to see what the flip was going on with our checking account. I had $300.00 in over draft charges! FUDGE! Every time I went to the closest ATM machine by my house (which isn't my actual bank) they charged me, and of course because I didn't have money in my account, my bank slapped me another hot one with $33.00 each time. I had no idea. I was checking that account religiously praying that it would be positive, only to find out I was was making it more negative everytime I checked my balance.

Small lesson learned: Check my freakin balance at my actual bank and make sure I know my password for online banking so I can check it at home.

Are any of you battling debt? Have any of you overcome your debt? Leave a comment and let me know. Your comments are important to me. I am hoping to use them as some kind of guidance to slowly dig my family out of this mess.