Filed under: Life — at 10:57 am by jim

Yes, it’s a rather arbitrary amount… but what would you do if you just happened to have an extra three grand lying around?  That’s the question I’ve been asking myself for the past week.

Every month, my printed bank statement arrives from Wachovia… it always shows my usual AT WORK REGULAR CKG account, with a balance anywhere between $10 and $4000.  That’s just the checking account into which my company auto-deposits my monthly paychecks.  I then withdraw all of the money and spend it on essential goods like alcohol and fast food.

But in addition to that account, my bank statement also shows a FREE STUDENT CKG account with the exact amount of $3194.09.  This account has been on there every single month, for well over a year.  I never really thought anything of it, because I couldn’t imagine having $3200 that I somehow misplaced.  That’s basically one month’s take-home income for me, and I would have realized that it wasn’t in the correct bank account when I tried to pay some of my bills.  So instead, I figured maybe this was a line item on my bank statement that actually represented my overdraft protection, or something weird like that.

Yet I still thought that I should check, just to be sure that I didn’t have a whole lot of extra money just sitting there.  Besides, it was kind of odd that the amount never changed.  So last week, I planned to go over to the bank to ask them about the account… I never got around to it until yesterday, so I spent a whole week thinking about what I would do if this was money that I could actually spend.

I could use the money to completely pay off my car loan on the Corolla… then I would have an extra $170 each month to spend however I wanted.  When I combine that with my recent annual raise, I would have an additional $500 a month in disposable income (used for alcohol and fast food).

Alternatively, I could test my investment skills on the stock market… that could be a fun hobby, and it would have the potential for financial gains too.

Or maybe I’d just use the money for a vacation.  With $3200, I could take an trip to pretty much anywhere for a couple of weeks.  I’d only have to choose a destination.

Well after all of that daydreaming, I finally went to the bank yesterday and asked about the account.  The teller looked a little confused, because the account number didn’t even show up under my name… in fact, she said the person wasn’t even the same nationality as me.  I’m not sure why she told me that, but it was kind of funny.

When she realized the situation, she started talking very quietly… I’m guessing that maybe she didn’t want other customers to hear what had happened.  So she had me speak with someone else in the bank… this person was also a bit surprised by the situation.  She took down the two account numbers and said she’d fix the problem.  Several hours later, I received a call to confirm that the account was not actually mine, and it was no longer linked to me.

Amusingly, I feel as if I lost $3200, even though I technically never had it.