Have I ever mentioned to you that my wife Linda is absolutely brilliant? 

If I have, I still won’t have mentioned it enough. She is the yin to my yang, the red dot to my purple dot, the order to my chaos.

One of the many things at which she is brilliant is running the household accounts. 

I was a solo dad for eight years so can and did do this stuff, but never with the diligence, conscience, even pleasure with which she attends to what I see as a task. 

I remember coming home one winter’s afternoon to find she had gone through all our accounts on-line, changed power, internet and electricity supplier, saved us a truckload of money and got us Sky TV for free. 

I, on the other hand, couldn’t tell her what power, internet and insurance company we had been with before the purge. 

If she dies before me, I’m screwed. Except I won’t be, because I guarantee there will be a carefully compiled and regularly updated list somewhere with all the stuff I need to know.

All her diligence paid off this week. 

“Old man” she called as I was doing the dishes (see, I am of some use), “did you spend $260 on our Visa on medicinal cannabis oil?” Well no, I hadn’t. 

My marvellous wife had been scanning our Visa card record on-line, which she does every few days, and found a bunch of pending payments that we had nothing to do with. 

Someone somewhere had somehow got our card details and was racking up a high old time of it, with pending transactions of almost a thousand dollars to prove it. 

How they got our details goodness only knows, but due to Linda’s diligence, a quick phone call to the bank put a stop to their party. 

I’m not sure what would have happened had she not been so alert, but I was even more grateful than usual that she keeps her eye on such things.

It is really scary what can happen to your money, but there are ways you can help keep yourself safe. 

Netsafe have some really good advice and your bank will also have a page on-line with helpful tips. It’s a good idea to have a look at these before you need to, because unfortunately you just never know when that day will come.