Is It Naptime Yet

Lately I’ve had several instances when my credit and debit cards have been declined. One store just doesn’t like my credit card, and it has been declined on three separate occasions. The third time I mentioned how this happens but I know that I have credit and the clerk swiped it on the main register and it was fine. Today while at Costco my debit card was declined twice and and I had to use a second debit card.

When my credit or debit cards get declined I can’t help but feel like the cashier or people around me think that I’m one of the many people who are struggling at this time or even worse, is someone who doesn’t know how to control their spending and spends out of their means all the time. I then have to try a different means of credit or debit and hope those work, which they always have. (Understand that I know there are times that people need to spend out of their means, it’s when people continually frivolously spend out of their means that I have a hard time, though I’m trying to be better at not judging.)

After I have the worry of what people think, I then worry about identity theft. We never use even close to our credit limit and we always have money in our checking. I’ve had Jon check our credit card when it’s been declined and today after my debit card was declined at Costco I came home and immediately checked our account and we had more than enough to pay for my $42 visit, none of which included school stuff.

I admit that I’m happy and I find pride that we’re able to live within our means. In some ways we are easily able to live within our means, but in other ways it’s hard because we have a goal to save quite a bit and invest a lot of our income into retirement since we started investing later in life, at least later in life for Jon, I’m still really young.   Jon has some very high expectations for our savings and I am trying to help meet them. We both trust each other in our spending and have rarely had disagreements on how money should be or has been spent. I feel sympathy for couples who struggle with finances and how to spend money.

I joke that maybe the Lord is humbling me because I am proud that we live so simply. It can be hard and at times I do desire more, and at times I do spend more, but overall we are very secure compared to those struggling around us and I’m happy that we are secure, at least at this time. I do know that at any moment things could go terribly wrong and we might really be struggling once again.

Maybe I need to be more compassionate and thoughtful towards those around me and the Lord is trying to tell me to be less prideful. We try to be giving and charitable, but we also are very blessed with so much and I am grateful for that.

Do you ever feel ashamed when your cards are declined?

Do you ever judge when you see someone’s card being declined? Truthfully I rarely judge as harshly as I described above when I see this happen in public. I feel bad for those whose cards are declined and I hope that they’re not struggling too much.

Am I just totally narcissistic to think people care a hoot about me and my finances?

Post thought: I hope this post doesn’t come off in that “we’re so secure and having my credit card declined is so humiliating.” We’ve had times of unemployment and underemployment and I’m sure that those days may come around again. Luckily we had been wise and saved money even when we were poor college students and then were able to make it on our own for those months of not earning enough income. At this point of time we’re now secure but we continue to work hard at saving money and living within our means, something that I think has lost it’s value as we have credit extended to us and credit card debt is seen as no big deal. I know some people need assistance and that is nothing to be ashamed about.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.