The $1,000 Thank You Letter I Didn’t Write

Failing to write a thank you letter cost me $1,000. Learn from my mistake, and write the perfect thank you note every time.

It was 1989. I was a freshman in college.

I was raised by a single mother who had only gone to college for one semester. She worked as a secretary in a factory in our small, northern Ohio town. She contributed all she could, but my college tuition depended heavily on my summer earnings and a loan from a local bank.