Money

We got a check in the mail yesterday.

That doesn't sound like such an earth-shattering event, and it certainly wasn't a large amount, but the source is what has surprised me.

We've all heard about these "billions" of dollars of unclaimed money that the state comptrollers are holding, right? A few weeks back, I saw a link to this site. It lists the links to all 50 states' lists of unclaimed or abandoned property. Even though we have always been very careful with our money and I thought there was no way that we could have money we had forgotten about (how does one forget about money?), I clicked on Texas and started searching for Kelly's name first. After all, he's more forgetful than I am (ducking for cover now...).

I couldn't believe my eyes when his name was on the list! And it was from the medical clinic that I worked for in San Angelo for the last year of college and right before he went active duty. I also saw a couple of the doctors there, especially when I got pregnant with Kora about 6 months before we left town. Since it wasn't in my name, like it would if they had owed me money from my paycheck, I have to assume we over paid a medical co-pay. But really, that's just a guess.

I then checked my name in Texas, his name in Oklahoma (we lived there for 3 years) and my name in Oklahoma. Nothing else showed up, but it was still money we didn't have before, right? Then I looked at the paper work you had to submit to claim it. Then I wasn't sure we would be able to get it because I could find nothing that had the address there in San Angelo on it, to proved we had lived there. Because we were college students, we filed income taxes from his parents' home, since it was listed as our permanent residence. And we had no utility bills, pay stubs or anything left from 13 years ago. Even his orders to enter the military just listed "Texas" as our address.

Finally, I looked at our college transcripts. Fortunately, his had our San Angelo address on it - and his Social Security number which they needed as well. But I still wasn't sure that was sufficient to prove to the Texas state that he was who he said he was. Evidently it was, though, and we received it yesterday.

The moral is, even if you are positively sure it is a waste of time, go here and search anyway. You might be surprised.