I’ll be the first to admit that my spending habits are not always as disciplined the way that they should be. This story happened about two years ago so it’s not super recent but it was a very valuable learning experience. Anyway, one of the things that I’ve come to enjoy are comedy shows because I like humor. Anyway, I was at a comedy show and I got an SOS message from a somewhat close acquaintance asking me to call them as soon as possible. Now, because it wasn’t from a member of my immediate family or close circle I decided to wait until after the show to call the person back. So I did. Thinking that it was some big emergency I called as soon the show was over somewhat concerned. The emergency was the fact that this person wanted to borrow some money from me. Now, when that happens the answer is usually a straight “no.” I hate mixing money with friends and acquaintances and usually will just give it away and not worry about it instead of wrecking a relationship. I don’t think that it’s worth the hassle of lending it out. Now, it wasn’t an obscene amount of money—about a hundred and a half (ish). It was for a good cause and they promised to pay me back the next week. However intuition, common sense, and intelligence were screaming “don’t do it!!!” But, to be honest I was at a point in my life where I was still searching for reasons to have faith in humanity. I guess it was a personal thing. I wanted to trust that this person had good intentions despite the fact that I had known them for a few short months. So, I said yes. Against my better judgment and trying to have faith in humanity and taking a risk. Second mistake in this fiasco was that I let this person use my debit card for the transaction that they so desperately needed. Well, not my actual card but I gave them all the appropriate numbers deciding to trust that they were trustworthy. So the next day I awoke to a text message that informed me that this person had “accidentally” charged $100 more than I had authorized on my card. Being that it was a debit card, the money was already gone from my account. It was then that I found out that the money was actually for this person’s friend who (ironically) I actually knew personally. It was then that my feelings toward the situation gravitated towards significant irritation and annoyance. Mostly at the fact that there was a more noticeable lack of funds in my bank account due to my own stupidity and not making a smart decision. Needless to say, I was only reimbursed the original amount which left me $100 poorer and it was a bad situation all around. Lesson learned. I guess the icing on the cake was a few unauthorized charges that appeared a few months later on my account totaling about $200 that required the freezing of my account and the issuing of a difference card with the accompanying stress. Faith in humanity substantially shaken. They say an ounce of experience is more than a pint of advice and I certainly learned a lesson.