A nice mellow seven minutes for your Monday morning.
We're frequently told to save money. Particularly for retirement, when we're going to be in declining health and we probably should just enjoy ourselves instead of working a lot.
We're also told to curb our spending, especially what we're borrowing, particularly when it comes to credit cards.
This week, I got a credit card offer in the mail. It encouraged me to go to a website, punch in a 9-digit number, and I could have confirmation of my approval in 30 seconds. The card came with a $29 one-time processing fee, a $95 one-time enrollment fee, a $48 annual fee, and a $7 monthly fee, billed at $84 annually.
In other words, it would have taken me about 30 seconds to drop $256 before I'd even received the card in the mail.
The other thing that happened this week is that I started to consolidate a 401(k) from a previous job into my current job's 401(k) plan. My current job's plan is far out-performing the other, and I thought it'd be nice to have all of that in one place.
I logged into my old job's plan account management tools. It had a rollover button, but it was for rolling accounts in, not out to other plans. So I logged into the other account, and it told me to call customer service.
I called customer service, punched my way through an automated system to get to a human, who then patched me over to the rollover department, who sent me to an administrator for our company's plan, who told me I'd have to call my HR department.
The next day, I did, and they sent me forms for accepting a rollover.
Now that I knew how the acceptance side worked, I had to get a check from the plan I was closing. I logged into the website, called the number I was given, and was told to call the plan administrator at the company.
I did, and she dropped forms in the mail, which meant two more days.
I got the forms; it's a fairly complicated package. Here's what I have to do.
- Fill out a form, and mail it to the receiving plan for a signature to say it's actually a retirement plant. Then they have to mail it back to me.
- Write a letter (they include a sample), fill out another form, and include the form I received from my current plan, and mail that to the company I used to work for.
- The company I used to work for will then mail the package to my old plan, who will take up to 10 business days to review my 4 sheets of paper and cut a check. I'm unclear on whether the check goes to my old company and then to me, or if it comes right to me.
- Once I get the check, I have five more pages to fill out and mail to my HR department along with the check, and they will then forward the check to the receiving plan, who will take up to 10 business days to process the rollover.
So let's review. Spend $256 for the privilege of receiving a credit card: 30 seconds. Roll a prior 401(k) into a current 401(k): 20 business days of processing, plus 17 postal days, plus the time it actually takes for me and my HR representatives to fill out the forms and switch envelopes, plus whatever time it takes for my current plan to sign a piece of paper saying it's a retirement plan.
So yeah, it's going to take 2 months for wiser savings, vs. 30 seconds for a bad borrowing decision that I'm sure ropes in a lot of people.
I think this is what they call a FAIL.
Happy hour and dinner on a Friday night can get stale. Last week, we mixed it up a bit.
Since we were arriving at different times, we met at our usual Friday haunt, the . Rather than my usual Boddingtons (cold days) or 1812 Amber (warm days), I stepped out of my mold and tried Stone's . This is a barley wine from the people who make Arrogant Bastard Ale.
Old Guardian is a smooth wine that takes on the characteristics of an Irish red – slightly hoppy, with a little bit of a chocolate overtone. It's served in a 10-oz glass, and is a slow sipper.
The three of us then went on to , where we were seduced by menus, soft jazz, and a waiter who disappeared into the kitchen for two minutes to check the specials and came out with a 15-minute soliloquy.
I'll just get right to the goods here. We shared an appetizer of a spring roll filled with king crab legs and vegetables, served with a dipping sauce of rice vinegar with jalapeño peppers.
For dinner, M— had duck in a tamarind sauce, served with rice and paired with a pinot noir recommended by our server. J— had sea scallops the size of her head, served with mixed mushrooms and rice, and paired with a raspberry framboise. I had their house duck, served in a Grand Marnier sauce over mashed potatoes, paired with a bourbon old-fashioned.
Our desserts included a raspberry sorbet, a mixed-sorbet basket, and a chocolate cake with a molten center served with burnt sugar ice cream. They make all their sorbets and ice creams in-house.
I topped the evening off with a glass of , served the good ol' way (room temperature in a glass) at , famous for its roast beef sandwiches and for not accepting tips at the bar.
Both the Blue Tusk and Clark's are on All About Beer's worldwide list of .
Highly recommended, all the way around.