growing in the goo

Let's be frank here. I have very little money in my bank account at the moment. So little that the ticket I bought yesterday for going home on Memorial Day weekend just about cleaned me out.

So before I bought the ticket, I checked the balance. Just enough. Good. I bought the ticket, checked my balance again, and the amount had been subtracted from my account. Painful, but well, it was what I was expecting.

So this morning I checked my account to see if my mom had deposited a check of mine that she had been carrying around. And no, she wasn't just giving me money, it was payment for freelance work that I had done for a friend of hers.

And the ticket and the check are for about the same amount, so the amount in my checking matched up with what I was expecting. Except for two things:
1) I had given my mom my savings account number, in the naive hope that I would actually save it.
2) There was about $20 too much in there.

I checked, and the ticket hasn't been posted to my account. WTF? Before it would be listed, and the amount would be subtracted, and I wouldn't be in danger of overspending. Now they subtract the amount for a brief time, put the amount back in, and the transaction isn't posted until a later date?

I noticed this dangerous discrepancy last week as well. It worries me. It's a ticking time bomb. A powder keg, if you will.

It might be time to get a credit card, and start keeping track of purchases. Egads!