Monday, June 22, 2009

How not to go green

At my current job my employer provides a corporate American Express card for business use. Due to cost cutting, or as we call it, aligning our expense to revenue ratio, we don't travel as much. Plus, would any company want me to be their "face" to the customers?

So, I haven't use my card in many, many months. And if I don't use the card I don't get a statement. However, this past month I got a bill for $0.00. The reason they sent me a statement was to include a notice saying they weren't going to send paper statements any more. To save money and the environment all future statements are going to be via e-mail.

So, wouldn't it have saved even more money if they just would have sent the notice via e-mail?

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

I wonder if I'm the beneficiary

Every now and then something happens in my life to remind me that I'm an idiot. I did some financial planning this past week and part of the comparison included my current life insurance policy and some that they offered. Since I don't have the policy handy, I called my agent this morning to get a copy of it. She didn't have it on file so she had to get it from the home office and was going to e-mail me the info when she got it.

Later, she e-mailed me the info, but I was confused by the monthly charge. I called her and asked why the monthly charge was $35, yet $70 was being drafted from my checking account every month. She gave me the policy number for a second policy that was also being drafted from my account and the phone number for the home office so that I could have the auto-draft removed, if need be.

The home office gave me the information on that second policy, and I immediately responded with, "Holy crap!" I was the primary policy holder on another life insurance policy. I won't give the name of the secondary, but it was someone I stopped dating in 1999. So for 10 years I've been paying the premium on that ex-girlfriend's life insurance policy.

Yeah, that auto-draft was removed.