I thought auto-paying my bills was smart until a $28 gym charge in Tulsa bounced my rent
For two years I let my bank auto-draft everything and never checked. Then a gym in Tulsa I quit kept charging me $28 a month, and the third draft hit the same morning as my $1,150 rent, so the rent got flagged as insufficient funds and I ate a $35 fee. I switched to a separate checking account just for bills and now I look at it every Sunday night, which takes me about 10 minutes. Has anyone else split their direct deposits like this, or is there a cleaner way to keep surprise charges from messing with rent?
Did you check if the gym is still pulling from the old account, or did you close it? Because if that Tulsa gym has your routing number they can keep trying, and some of them will reattempt a failed charge a few days later hoping you have money by then. My other thought is you could ask your bank to block that specific merchant instead of babysitting it every Sunday.