Financial detective work

After an awful lot of poring through months' worth of receipts, I've managed to identify a point at which a twenty-pound note definitely appeared 'out of thin air' without being withdrawn from the bank, on the 16th of October when I was buying batteries and paid for them with a £20 note when according to my calculations I only had £4.18 in my wallet, which was not enough to be able to afford them out of the change I had on hand. I do sort of vaguely recall the episode; I have a feeling I was going to pay for them with a Visa card and for some reason couldn't or decided against it -- maybe the card machine was not working, maybe I was going to ask for 'cashback' and they said they didn't do it -- and I think I may have suddenly remembered that I did in fact have a backup note in my *other* wallet (from the long-lost days when that used to be my 'personal' money for my private amusements as opposed to the housekeeping; it has been all housekeeping for rather a long time now) and have decided to use that instead.

And I think the 'two-wallet problem' may perhaps account for the further discrepancy that has arisen over Christmas, when I transferred my last remaining £10 note into my 'private' wallet, went on holiday expecting not to need to spend any money, had to withdraw thirty pounds in an emergency, and spent some of that while obviously receiving change from it. So there was some change left behind in the 'housekeeping', as I only took the note, and other change that ended up in the 'private' wallet and is still there, since I didn't transfer it back when I returned. ( Read more... )