Step 4 of The Financial Fitness Bootcamp Course

I worked on a customer support team at a company that charged monthly memberships for their services and products. I would get calls all the time from people asking me to reverse multiple charges, often admitting that they had forgotten about the membership and hadn’t checked their statements for months.

Most of the time I would refund the last charge but could do no more than that. It amazed me that people would go 3, 5, even 9 months without reviewing their credit card statements in detail.

Other people were charged even after they had -or thought they had- canceled. A few called in and explained that a family member had used their card without them knowing (which was always a sad situation for me to hear about).

After working in this department for only a few weeks, I realized that it is very important to look at statements in detail every month.

It is vital to review expenditures in detail because of the following reasons:

1. Catching credit card theft early is very important.

2. Mistakes happen -even with the most honest of companies- and you may pay for things you didn’t intend on.

3. We often forget to call and cancel reoccurring charges that we have signed up for and are no longer in need of.

4. If you catch a charge that you don’t want early on, getting refunded is often much easier to do.

So, Challenge #4 is to sign in to your bank and pull up the last two months worth of all of your statements (checking, credit cards, etc.). Review them for any mistakes, monthly memberships that need to be canceled, or unauthorized charges. Set a time on your calendar (if you don’t have the time right now) to call and cancel, resolve, and/or ask for refunds for them. Finally, commit yourself to review your statements every month (set a reminder on your calendar if need be).

By completing this challenge, your hard-earned money will go only to purchases you intend on making.

P.S. If you print out your statements, please save them. You will be looking at the statements again for another challenge in this Boot Camp Course.