Ever since I typed in my secret code for my Carte Bleu (bankcard) to buy our skis, every time I’ve used it, I’ve secretly feared that instead of the card reader telling me code bon it will say whatever it says when your purchase is rejected. What would I do if after spending an hour filling my cart at Carrefour then unloading it all, having it scanned, then putting it all in my bags I couldn’t pay for it? (I have started carrying a back-up American credit card, just in case) All I need to do to end my suffering is to check our balance. I can do it online even. But the website is in FRENCH. And try as I might, I simply cannot decipher it. I could call the phone service, but that wouldn’t get me any farther.
This stinks.
It’s not like I think that the skis drained the account. But the skis, the ski lessons, the weekly trips to Carrefour… they all add up. And we aren’t keeping track of our spending in a checkbook or Quicken. We just look every once in a while at the online statement. Well, Bill looks because he remembers how.
I used to balance my checkbook religiously. I used the form on the back of your statement, and always with a pencil to correct my math mistakes. If I was just a penny off, I would spend hours going back over everything to find the error.
Now, I go to Decathlon and say to myself hhmm… these t-shirts are only 9 euros each… I’ll buy three (those were actually shirts for Bill)
So far, we’ve been ok. But this is going to catch up with us sooner or later. Neither sounds pleasant.