Giving Debit Where Debit Is Due

     This week marks an important milestone for me as my rechargeable debit card expires.  It was my first one ever.  I know that it will sound strange that I got my first ever edit or credit card so late in life, but I do have a good explanation for it.  My mother is sort of obsessed with money.  For some reason, she has never thought I was good with it.  While I admit I sometimes go overboard, it was never that often and never intentional.  Nevertheless, she pretty much refused for me to ever get.  I preferred cash anyways, and I rarely had to buy anything too expensive.  The main downside was that I could never purchase things online.  This al changed when I got into graduate school.  To save money, my mother wanted to make sure I could get my books through alternate sources.  This meant getting most of the books through the library, with a few more through my bookstore.  I only had to get a small amount through the college, and for that I needed some sort of card.  After some hassle, I finally got my first card, a rechargeable debit card.  I only used it for a few books, one a used book for a class I ultimately dropped and couldn't return because it was no longer going to be used.  For my second semester, both of my books were available through my own bookstore, so I didn't need the card for awhile.  That's when I started using it for other things.  The first purchases were for digital PDF versions of books that I had been wanting for years.  There was a sale going on, and I bought all six.  I could have ordered print-on-demand physical copies, but that would have cost too much.  I would end up buying multiple other PDFs from the series, including newer ones as they were brought out.  I would sponsor crowdsourcing for other new products, getting some older PDFs of products as well.  Sure, there were other benefits that I would end up either mostly ignoring or opting out on, but I was just so overjoyed to finally be able to get into one of my favorite things after having to sit out on it due to not being able to order online.  I also bought a few other things, actual physical objects and not digital releases, with my card.  I also used it to sign up for my loan streaming service.  I tried to renew early, before my card expired, but I wasn't given the chance.  My mother even co-opted it to order something for herself, although she may have returned it.  She frequently does that.  At the end of the week, my card will finally expire. I'm planning on making one last online purchase in the remaining hours.  Then, I'm not sure what I'll do.  I'll need a new card so that I can renew my streaming plan.  I'll need a new card to make sure my PayPal service remains steady, even if I so rarely use it. I'll need a new card the next time there's a sale of my digital books or crowdsourcing for a new one I'd like to be a part of.  (I'm only now starting to buyback older books that I lost twenty years ago in the flood.  That would be dozens of downloads.) Hopefully, I can start a new account soon, although I'm sure my mother would prefer that I didn't have one.