Lesson Learned

So today I learned a lesson in record keeping. Normally I am pretty good about keeping track of receipts and documents, but lately I have been slacking off. Maybe it has something to do with the 100+ things I have going on or maybe I just haven’t made it a high enough priority. Either way there is a huge stack of documents that I have to go through and organize soon before I get caught unprepared again. Ok, here is the story

I sold my textbooks from last semester on Amazon Marketplace this year. Overall it was a great experience and I sold all of the books within four days. When mailing the books I always buy the insurance even though I think it is overpriced. I really didn’t feel like taking the hit if the books never arrived. Well guess what. I get an email from a guy today claiming he never got his book that I mailed on December 10. First of all I don’t believe that the guy never received the book. As bad as the post office is, they usually get the packages to their destination at some point or another. The real problem though lies in the fact that I can’t locate my insurance receipt from the post office, and the postal system is so archaic that you are SOL if you lose the piece of paper. There is no such thing as looking it up electronically.

So it looks like I will be taking a $50 hit just because of some lousy record management on my part. While this does suck, it is at least motivating me to take better care of everything in the future. Lesson learned.