Always keep your receipts!!

If you're like me, you hate having a messy purse/wallet. I can't stand when I go to a store, pull out my wallet, and a billion receipts come jumping out at me. If I have made a sound decision that I'm not going to return the item that I bought, I go ahead and throw the receipt away. Yes, I took a personal finance class in college, and yes, I learned that you should really keep receipts filed away for a few years, but I just can't bring myself to save those things! Well, I have recently changed my tune.
My mom bought my little boy a bunch of super cute clothes for Christmas, but they were all winter clothes and the weather is not so much wintery where I live. So, we decided to take them back and buy some spring/summer clothes in a bigger size. We went to the mall and exchanged the clothes for a gift card. We were definitely surprised by the amount my mom had spent, and I was excited to get to go shopping (because that does not happen very often in our household).  I decided to wait until I came here, to Vegas, to spend it so that my mom could have some more fun shopping. We went to the store today and found come super cute stuff, but as I was checking out I looked in my wallet for the gift card and it wasn't there. My heart instantly dropped. Oh crap! I let the little monster play with my wallet during church on Sunday to keep him quiet. I thought I had picked up all of the cards he had dropped, but I must have missed that one. We went home, and I searched the house just in case it was there. No card. My brother and I went back to the church to see if someone had found it and turned it in to the lost and found. No card. I called the company to see if anything could be done, but they told me the obvious--I need the receipt with the card number on it. Well, gosh darn it I don't have the receipt anymore! So, unless by some miracle it turns up, I'm out of luck. The part I feel the worst about is that my mom spent all that money and now it's just gone. If it was me who spent the money I would still be mad, but I would be the only one affected. I guess I learned two valuable lessons: save your receipts and don't let your kids play with your wallet!!


On and unrelated note, I'm a bit neurotic, and I like to know who out there in this wide internet world is reading what I write. SO, if you are one of those people, would you mind clicking that little button over on the right that says "follow?"--even if I don't know you, I want to know who's interested. I know it's lame, but if you could just humor me I would greatly appreciate it!