1️⃣Do the thing 1️⃣
Hi friends!
Welcome to Better Have My Money, my Monday night newsletter about stocks, investing and feeling as emotional about money as you do about the end of summer.
A short lil one today since it’s Labor Day here and I want to limit my unpaid labor.
Since markets have been uneasy lately, I’ve been trying to focus on money in other parts of my life. Making sure my bills are paid, my debts accounted for, credit card paid off every month, upping my automatic savings an extra $50 every fortnight — all the little things. Getting recession ready.
Which meant I had to tackle my mail.
Mail is not my forte, in any form.
I suck at replying to emails. I read them on my phone at inconvenient times and think ‘interesting! I’ll reply later’ and then never open them again.
And I suck at old school mail. I grab it on the way into my house, throw it on a bookshelf and…. forget about it for months until I’m doing a mad clean of my house and I throw it into a drawer.
However, for reasons that make literally no sense to me, my health insurance company sends ME cheques, which I then have to cash and send on to the doctor (despite never receiving a bill from said doctor).
I do not understand this system in any way BUT I did understand that a while back I had received cheques for some physical therapy I got for my dodgy neck and I had just never done anything about them. And that I had then later received mail from the insurance company saying “we sent you cheques and you didn’t cash them, why, please fill out this form” and a letter from the physical therapist saying “your insurance company sent you money, please send it to us” (and yet… still no bill).
So today I was like fuck it, let’s deal with the mail and get that stuff sorted.
Turns out the physical therapy appointments were LAST OCTOBER. I’ve had the cheques for nearly a year.
I also found two other small bills I had just totally forgotten about (one for $13, one for $70) that I quickly wrote cheques for (this country is backwards) and dealt with them.
In total the chore took about 30 mins to do? Less? Including writing out cheques, putting them in envelopes and finding a stamp for them.
Anyway, this is just to encourage you to do the dumb little money thing you’ve been avoiding.
Been meaning to open a trading account and buy your first share? Set up an automatic savings? Move your credit card debt over to a 0% interest card? Close a bank account that’s been charging you $5 every month for a year cause you stopped using it?
Reply to this email and tell me the dumb money chore you dealt with. I promise you will feel some relief once it’s done (despite the overwhelming melancholy of the change of seasons).
Speaking of weather, lots of folks in the Bahamas and Florida are getting pretty hammered by Hurricane Dorian right now. Direct Relief is a disaster health relief organization that is working in communities affected by Dorian, so might be a good time to chuck them some dollars (particularly if you don’t have a dumb money chore! This can be your chore!).
Just one little thing,
Amber Jamieson
Better Have My Money is on Twitter @bhavemymoney, so please tweet nice things (aka the link to our sign up page) and tag us. Got a mate who sucks at saving? Forward this onto them and tell them to subscribe. If you sign up to Acorns, use my sign up code to join and we both get $5.
As always, if you've got any questions about stocks or money, this is a shame free zone. Just reply and ask away.