Dear Money Spender

The Martin Family Banker

When it comes to financial freedom as an expat wife, I consider myself pretty lucky. I have a joint back account with my husband at a Brazilian bank. This gives me my own debit card, checks, and ability to get cash from the ATM when I need it. That might not seem like much, but just getting a bank account in Brazil can be difficult and having "almost" full access as a spouse is a luxury.

It's the "almost" that seems to be the inconvenience. You see, there's this great little service in Brazil that allows you to pay people, services, businesses by directly transferring funds from account to account, but for some reason, only David is able to do it from our account. So every time I have a "bill" to pay, I have to, *gasp*, ask my husband for money. Worse, he actually has to do the paying. It really makes it inconvenient to sneak a few bucks by the banker.

Last week was a particularly large "outflow" (of cash) week and at weeks end I once again had to beg for money. What better way than to forward the "bill" and ask for it to be paid. Here's the sweet email I sent my husband and his equally sweet response.

Dear Personal Banker,

Please pay my INC dues when you have a chance.

Thank You,

Your loving money spender

Dear Money Spender,

We are sorry to inform you your request for funds has been denied. You will receive an official notification in the mail indicating reasons for this denial. The initial feedback was “insufficient funds”.

We are sorry for this inconvenience.

This is a system generated email. Please do not respond.

David B. Martin

South American Regional Controller

Leave it to my husband to trump my wittiness with his cottonmouth sense of humor. Needless to say, I laughed out loud all afternoon and forgot to remind him to SERIOUSLY PAY MY DUES!

Portuguese word of the post: conta which means bill, as in "pague a conta" (pay the bill), but used most often to request the "check" after a meal as in "conta, por favor".