How I found £1,000… in my own account

I’m looking at the Barclays Bank app on my iPhone 6 in consternation. An alert has just flashed up that a £100 payment has been made from my current account, but I have no idea what this payment could be for. My heartbeat is already racing, and my hands are beginning to shake...

The tracery of cracks on my screen reminds me that I probably ought to buy a new screen cover… “One day,” I think to myself. As I glance around my study, it’s full of things in the ‘one day I will attend to this' category.

I’ve opened up the banking app, and can see the entry charging my current account £100 on the transaction summary. The only detail shown against the payment is that it was a transfer to another account of mine. 

Which doesn’t help matters, because I’ve gone through my other accounts (Everyday Saver, Instant ISA Issue 1, BBA OVDRFT...), and that £100 hasn’t shown up in any of them. 

So is my £100 somewhere in the banking ether, in suspended animation, in anticipation of landing someplace?

Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

I carry on staring at the Accounts screen in my banking app. Then I notice something I haven't spotted before. There is a faint line that reads ‘Show all accounts’ and a down-arrow, at the bottom of the accounts listed on the screen. 

“I don’t think I have any other accounts. It would be quite something if it turned out there was another account, and it had received my £100. I’m really uncomfortable at the thought of losing that - I can’t afford to lose £100 just now!”

So I click on the down-arrow, and another account comes into view. This account is sporting the name “Everyday Saver” (another one?), and its available balance reads as £1,000. 

I’m blinking at it in disbelief...

Photo by Shubham Dhage on Unsplash

Then it occurs to me to look inside. It seems this account has been receiving a transfer of £100 from my current account at the start of every month… I’m drawing a blank.

Then a memory drifts up. In one of my more fiscally responsible moments (and no doubt inspired by reading a book encouraging women to take charge of their finances), I had set up a standing order to automatically transfer £100 into a savings account at the start of every month.

It seems I then promptly forgot about taking this action. Forgetting is more in line with my habit of distracting myself, putting some distance between and matters financial. Forgetting allows me to, well... forget about how my finances are doing, how powerless and hopeless I feel about my chances of improving my situation… There are a lot of benefits to forgetting!

I should perhaps own up now that my ‘forgetting to look’ at my bank statements is a long-established habit. That’s what made it possible for a £100 payment to go out from my current account every month, for months on end, and for me to not know about it.

It seems that this habit was veiling from me not just my financial woes, but also my resources. I start to wonder what else I might be concealing from myself, that could turn to my advantage, if only I could (re)discover it!

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How easy do you find it to know the extent of your financial resources?

What would help you to discover more of them?

What has been making it harder?

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

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