Financial redux
Mar. 7th, 2007 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
judecorpI subjected myself to American Idol tonight. Why do I do this to myself? I think I am a glutton for punishment.
Speaking of "a glutton for punishment," I let myself get beaten up by a financial planner again. Stupid, stupid me. Did I ever mention what happened? After that disaster fest, the financial planner e-mailed us a nice apology for misunderstanding a lot of stuff and said she would rethink things and send us a letter with a new plan. Well the "new plan" was that she wanted to apologize again and have a /different/ financial planner call us. So basically we got fired.
I was pretty cheesed that we got that kind of letter so when the new person called eventually I let her know that we did not dislike the other person at all, we just didn't have the kind of experience we were looking for and were actually quite shocked to have gotten "dumped." The new woman said she wanted to make things better and that maybe Jen and I should talk about whether we would be open to trying again. She suggested maybe something casual like getting some coffee and chatting about things. After a little while, we agreed, and Jen scheduled something.
Only it wasn't at a coffee shop or anything, it was at the same office. I told Jen that if she brings us to the same conference room, I was going to get upset. And of course she did, and had all kinds of pamphlets and charts and stuff. She DID, however, refrain from talking about life insurance and saving X amount per month or whatever... but what happened to coffee and conversation? She didn't even offer water.
I was SO put on the spot the whole time, with her feeling the need to call me out from time to time and ask if I was "okay" because I looked like I was "shutting down." At one point I finally just said, "I guess I'm shutting down on the charts and stuff, because I thought this was going to be a casual chat." I'm starting to think that I will never find someone who understands me, and I'll always be that freak who gets upset in the conference room. At this point I am starting to see why people hide money in their mattresses.
I guess I'm just overprotective when it comes to my family. She kept talking about how savings bonds are really impractical (this came up because my grandfather gave me some savings bonds) and that we should make sure to set up at 529 for our kid and tell everyone to put their money in it. Now I'm not saying a 529 is a bad idea, but there is NO WAY IN HELL I'm going to tell someone, ANYONE, how they can and can not extend their generosity to my child. Maybe that makes me naive or childish or stubborn or whatever, but if someone wanted to give me a $10 bill or a savings bond or a 529 contribution or a freaking chunk of gold, I would be honored, flattered, and thankful that someone would want to give something to my kid like that. I was ready to spit nails.
I really am not cut out for this financial business. I need to just go back to my fluffy world of social work, and my safe little savings account, and big deams about giving my baby a big fat bank account of love. I am so tired of crying about this crap.
Speaking of "a glutton for punishment," I let myself get beaten up by a financial planner again. Stupid, stupid me. Did I ever mention what happened? After that disaster fest, the financial planner e-mailed us a nice apology for misunderstanding a lot of stuff and said she would rethink things and send us a letter with a new plan. Well the "new plan" was that she wanted to apologize again and have a /different/ financial planner call us. So basically we got fired.
I was pretty cheesed that we got that kind of letter so when the new person called eventually I let her know that we did not dislike the other person at all, we just didn't have the kind of experience we were looking for and were actually quite shocked to have gotten "dumped." The new woman said she wanted to make things better and that maybe Jen and I should talk about whether we would be open to trying again. She suggested maybe something casual like getting some coffee and chatting about things. After a little while, we agreed, and Jen scheduled something.
Only it wasn't at a coffee shop or anything, it was at the same office. I told Jen that if she brings us to the same conference room, I was going to get upset. And of course she did, and had all kinds of pamphlets and charts and stuff. She DID, however, refrain from talking about life insurance and saving X amount per month or whatever... but what happened to coffee and conversation? She didn't even offer water.
I was SO put on the spot the whole time, with her feeling the need to call me out from time to time and ask if I was "okay" because I looked like I was "shutting down." At one point I finally just said, "I guess I'm shutting down on the charts and stuff, because I thought this was going to be a casual chat." I'm starting to think that I will never find someone who understands me, and I'll always be that freak who gets upset in the conference room. At this point I am starting to see why people hide money in their mattresses.
I guess I'm just overprotective when it comes to my family. She kept talking about how savings bonds are really impractical (this came up because my grandfather gave me some savings bonds) and that we should make sure to set up at 529 for our kid and tell everyone to put their money in it. Now I'm not saying a 529 is a bad idea, but there is NO WAY IN HELL I'm going to tell someone, ANYONE, how they can and can not extend their generosity to my child. Maybe that makes me naive or childish or stubborn or whatever, but if someone wanted to give me a $10 bill or a savings bond or a 529 contribution or a freaking chunk of gold, I would be honored, flattered, and thankful that someone would want to give something to my kid like that. I was ready to spit nails.
I really am not cut out for this financial business. I need to just go back to my fluffy world of social work, and my safe little savings account, and big deams about giving my baby a big fat bank account of love. I am so tired of crying about this crap.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-03-08 02:18 pm (UTC)I tend to think it will all be OK, and maybe I'm burying my head in the sand, but somehow I'm married and a homeowner and I've had great jobs and could get others (even though I quit school in the 10th grade) and my parents were dirt completely poor when I was growing up.
And of course I'm colored by the fact that when the market went south a few years ago they lost everything they HAD modestly built up over the years. They've bought up some land near us, and I assume they'll retire on that, and that we will not get a windall when they die and that's OK.
and psst.... we don't have life insurance! We just talked about getting a small policy for my dh since he's the only one working, that would pay off the mortgage if something happened.
The most important thing we do is we don't use credit cards, for anything. We save a little out of every paycheck and pay for big stuff with that money. Our home equity is our safety net, and if we had to, we have plenty of cc's we could use. We don't buy stuff we can't pay cash for, and to me that's more important than college savings accounts or mutual fund investing, you know?
no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 07:21 pm (UTC)And retirement saving is good and stuff, but taking care of our family in the NOW time seems much more important right now. But what do I know? I'm just the crazy pregnant lady.