The Weight of Money

I park on campus 3 days a week and display the $185 annual parking pass required to park in a (specified) numbered lot. I’ve been doing this for almost a year with no issues. However, when my car needed towed after throwing a tensioner last month, the partner reminded me to pull my parking permit off the mirror so that I could borrow his car when I needed to go to class. It turned out that the repairs were done that day and no borrowing of car was needed.

This also meant that the parking permit was now tucked into my backpack and forgotten. How often, since purchasing my parking permit, have I thought about or even verified the presence of my parking permit? Not once. So, when I was back on campus a day or two later, I didn’t think once about the permit that was not hanging from my mirror and went off to class. At the end of the day a bright yellow citation envelope caught my eye and suddenly I had a clear vision of my hand removing the permit from the mirror and tucking it into my backpack. Sure enough, I looked in the backpack and it was shining from beyond the mesh pocket in front ready and waiting to be placed in its rightful and lawful position.

The citation - $75 - ouch! I’d just spent $57 on a tow and $175 on repairs, I couldn’t imagine paying another $75 for my car for that one repair incident. So, I took action and contested the citation and requested a review. I included a letter describing the situation and sent in copies of my valid parking permit, my towing bill, and my repair bill. Within 2 days of submission, I had a positive response and I was no longer going to be another $75 short transportation costs.

This ties in with the post by Frugal Upstate about Losing Money By Not Doing Anything. I would have lost $75 if I’d simply done nothing. Also, if I’d listened to friends, I would have lost $75. Most just argued that there was no way that I was going get out of the fine and I should just pay it and get over it.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 8th, 2006 at 10:09 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.