So the checking account bounced this week, which came as a total shock to me. There should have been at least a grand left in the account. I called the bank and transferred some money from savings (which we needed to pay our grad school tuition), but still had no idea how my mental tabulation of our balance had gotten so far off.

I balanced the checkbook today, and while looking at the bank statement online, realized that our 2nd mortgage company has been both drafting our account for $500+ each month, as well as billing us for a similar amount. Since December. There’s the $1,000 I was looking for.

Normally, when you sign up for automatic payment drafts, they tell you to keep paying your bills until the draft goes through. Normally, they also tell you when they’ve drafted your account, and stop sending you monthly bills. However, our company, Countrywide, apparently feels no obligation to notify you that they’ve already drafted your account, and tells you to send in the full amount. (They also doubled our interest rate a few months ago for no apparent reason other than that they are apparently allowed to do that whenever they feel like it. We’re looking to re-fi soon.)

If I had checked the tiny print on the back of the statement, I would have seen that both the draft and the check were listed, which should have given me pause. But, since I wasn’t expecting anything unusual, I didn’t even look at the back of the statement. I saw the “minimum payment due” amount, wrote a check, and put it in the mail. Done it a thousand times (actually closer to seven hundred if I look at my check numbers).

Bank drafts are supposed to save everyone the trouble of dealing with paper checks, right? Ughhhh. I really hate money.

UPDATE: After talking with Aaron, I couldn’t resist looking up this Morgan Stanley sketch from last night’s rerun of Saturday Night Live.