Monday, October 06, 2008

Her Own Money

A week or so ago Beth stopped by the bank on the way home from school. She opened a new checking account and savings account - one that is not linked to our accounts and that we can't access. Technically the High School Checking account we opened for her was supposed to end when she turned 18, and change to a College Checking account. She's still in high school, so they said she didn't have to change, but she decided to mostly because she doesn't want anyone else to have access to her accounts.

It was supposed to take a little while to get everything set up and to get her debit card sent to her, so they left her original account open until it was all set up, and then the bank is supposed to move her money over and close her old accounts. She has received her debit card and some other information, so when I logged into the bank accounts today and saw that her checking account balance was $0, I figured they had moved the money over. Except that her savings account still has a balance. So, I checked, and she spent more money than she actually had in her account, so overdraft protection had moved over enough to cover it from her savings.

Then the question is, transfer enough to cover it so that she doesn't get hit with the overdraft fee again, or just leave it alone? I mean, she wants to handle her own money, says she knows how, but I don't want to see her get hit with a fee, either.

I decided that she wants to handle her own money and she needs to learn, so I didn't touch it. I did, however, mention it to her when she got home from school, and she transferred some money before she left for work. Pretty soon everything will be changed over, and I won't be able to see if she's on thin ice. Then she really will have to keep track of her own money, or pay the fees. Pretty soon she'll have to do everything for herself, like get her own car insurance, get life insurance quotes, and maybe even clean her room/apartment/house. Yeah, I'll believe that one when I see it!


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1 comment:

  1. Oh how exciting. And yes scary! I think you did the right thing. The real world is a big bad place full of all sorts of fees, so she needs to get used to it :-0

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