money matters

photo from Google images

I switched insurance companies today, for my homeowner's and auto policies. This was a huge deal for me, psychologically, for a couple of reasons. First, I absolutely hate dealing with money. Most of the time I love being on my own, but when I have to do anything dealing with money, I really wish I had, at the very least, a sounding board regarding the decisions I'm making. The simple fact is, money doesn't interest me. I know that I need it, and there are times that I take real pleasure in spending it, but as a divorced woman, I've also had to learn how to handle it, and for the most part, that has been a painful experience, and one for which I never have much enthusiasm, in part because I'm never sure that I know what I'm doing. Second, I've been with Company A for about 15 years, and they've always been great to deal with, so a part of me felt guilty even thinking about switching companies. But my premiums had risen so steeply that I decided I had to get comparison bids from other, equally well rated companies. When I did that, it was clear that the amount of money I'd save by switching was substantial and I couldn't justify not doing it. I called Company A and told them Company B had done an apples to apples comparison on both policies and asked them if they could match it. Any guilt I'd felt evaporated when I got their response. For the auto policy, they were willing to switch me to one of their lesser companies, which would lower the premium slightly; for the homeowner's, their suggestion was that if I wanted a lower premium, I should increase my deductible from $500 to 1% of the overall value of my property on all claims. Huh? I may hate dealing with money, but I'm not stupid. I said thanks but no thanks and called Company B and had them draw up the paperwork, which was then faxed to me. I signed on the dotted line and faxed it back, and gave them credit card information for the premium, at which time I was faxed a temporary ID card...all of which left me feeling like I wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head. It's not supposed to be like this, is it? Aren't I supposed to feel empowered or something? But the people I like best in this world tend to share my loathing of dealing with money. Dunno what that says about us...

this 'n that...

I checked my email tonight and found I had a big, unsolicited, color invitation to buy Term Life Insurance from...ta da! AIG! Yep, that's the same AIG that the federal government has just agreed to bail out with an $85 billion dollar loan.

Thanks but no thanks. I don't need Term Life Insurance, and if I did, I wouldn't consider buying it from AIG, no matter what rate they offered. One of the auto divisions of AIG tried to get my business a couple of months ago, when I was looking into switching carriers. They offered a really competitive rate, but when I went to the Texas Department of Insurance website to check them out, the A.M. Best rating gave me pause...and so I stayed with Nationwide for now, in spite of the fact that I loathe their "Life comes at you fast" commercials, especially the one where an open can of yellow paint falls off the window washers' scaffold onto a small red car, several stories below. Why do the window washers have an open can of yellow paint on their scaffold? And why does the "friend" not say anything as the car is being destroyed? It's yet another stupid ad, but television is filled with stupid ads. C'est la vie.

...money (that's what I want)...

So I met with the HR guy yesterday, to ostensibly learn about benefits, yada yada yada, but of course I was really there so we could dance the dance of MONEY. My colleague (J) and I have both been offered positions by The Company, but J interviewed with the HR guy immediately before I did. J and I both have master’s degrees, and equal years of research experience, and we do the same job, but J makes 20% more than I do. I’m not speculating; J couldn’t wait to tell me how much she makes, and disclosed this fact to me in the first week that she occupied the cubette next to mine. I’m alternately amused and annoyed by how much she cares about this. J likes to pretend she’s a pussycat about money, but in fact she’s more of a barracuda.

When she came back from meeting with the HR guy, though, she looked steamed.

“How’d it go?” I asked.

“We’ll talk later,” she said darkly, playing her cards close to her vest.

“OK,” I said cheerfully, and I went on down to the bowels of The Company to meet with the HR guy. An overweight 30-something in de rigeur khakis and blue Oxford cloth shirt, he was on the phone when I got to his office, but he waved me in, then stayed on the phone for 5 more minutes, after which he spent an additional three minutes looking for my file. Hmmmmm, I thought, I wonder if I’m supposed to be impressed that he’s so busy, or intimidated that he’s misplaced my file. Feeling neither impressed nor intimidated, I smiled brightly and let him look for my file, but I didn’t say anything. I’m not laboring under the illusion that silence means I have to speak. By training (psychology) and birth (Scandinavian Lutheran) I’m comfortable with silence. I waited and let Mr. Office Space speak first.

He looked over my job application. “You left your previous job after just 3 months...” he said, at the last moment inflecting the end of the statement, to make it a question.

I stopped smiling and looked sober. “Family leave. Major house fire,” I said.

“Ohhhhhhhh...”

“But I worked at the U for five years before that...” I added, cheerfully.

He brightened and nodded and continued to peruse my application. He cleared his throat.

“You’re making ($X) per year?” he asked.

“Yes, I am,” I said, nodding, not missing a beat.

He made eye contact. I held eye contact.

“Uh huh,” he said. “That’s at the upper limit of the salary range for this job...”

“Is it?” I said cheerfully.

“Yes,” he said, “It is...”

“Well,” I said, “Now that you mention it, no one’s actually told me the salary range for this job. What is it?”

He consulted a fat black binder and told me.

I smiled confidently and said nothing.

Looooooooooong silence. He flipped through my paperwork.

“Well, but, you have a master’s degree...” he finally said.

“Yes I do,” I said cheerfully.

“And experience...”

I nodded my acquiescence to that.

In rapid-fire succession, he then told me about the 401K and the insurance and the PTO. I responded by oohing and ahhing appropriately. I then told him how much I like the Fort Worth Symphony and Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s conducting, after which we agreed that Sundance Square rocks, and The Kimbell is amazing.

“Do you have any questions for me?” he asked. “I mean about benefits or anything?”

“I read the literature,” I said, “and I think I have a pretty clear understanding of benefits. I guess the only other question I have is what kind of a time frame are we talking about?”

He said two to three weeks.

I thanked him for his time and went back upstairs, where J was still irritated with him.

“Did you meet with him?” she asked.

“Yes I did,” I said.

“You weren’t there very long,” she said suspiciously.

“I guess not,” I said.

“Did you talk salary?” she asked.

I couldn’t resist using her own line back on her: “We’ll talk later,” I said.

All that posturing wiped me out. While J was downstairs picking up some files, I slipped out and drove home, where I dumped some chemicals into the pool, drank a Pear Ale, and promptly fell sound asleep.

I hate having to think about money. I don’t have a burning desire to be filthy rich, but I’d like to have enough money to not have to think about it and while I admit I don’t know how much that is, I believe that it’s probably less than one would think.

Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard and the author of the book, Stumbling on Happiness, writes "Once you get basic human needs met, a lot more money doesn't make a lot more happiness." Dr. Gilbert’s research suggests that going from earning less than $20,000 a year to making more than $50,000 makes you twice as likely to be happy, however, he says that things level out after that, so that the increase in happiness for surpassing $90,000 is slight.

I can believe that. The fact is, I don't much care for people who care a lot about money. All too often, they know the price of everything and the value of nothing...