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Finding out what Enough is and moving toward it

February 25th, 2007 at 02:14 am

I flip through the excellent Your Money Or Your Life. I have lost sight of what "enough" is. I supposedly need $889,153 by age 68 for retirement, but what's meant by 'enough' is when it's fruitless to continue the grasping and building to keep up with someone who's always going to have more -- this trap I fall into too often. Accumulating for the sake of accumulating isn't healthy.

I need to sit down with the lads, talk about our tax situation, what money goals we have, how to make them realistic, and what we're going to do to meet them. And maintain that perfect fabulous balance of being sufficiently covered for liquidity and on track for retirement. As someone said, "you can have it all, you just can't have it all at once." What I want: a car fund, a vacation fund, and new windows.

Feeding the poverty neurosis: I opened an account at a new branch of a credit union so I could get a safe deposit box. I gave my driver's license, they did an online check of my banking activity and I was told "all we can give you at this time is a savings account."

This is how bad my banking has to be to be initially offered only a savings account at the credit union:
• be a joint mortgage holder with 94 months of on-time payments;
• two brokerage accounts 8 years and 4 years old but low;
• three retirement accounts nine, six and five years old respectively;
• joint chequing/savings account combination of $10K in assets;
• another chequing/savings account: very low -- wanting to move out of that.
• one joint personal line of credit unused for two years;
• one joint home equity line of credit not yet used;
• three credit cards: eleven, seven, and five years old respectively all with ontime payments;
• own your vehicles in full;
• demonstrate a record eight years long of paying off your vehicle loans early and ontime.

So gosh, how loaded do I have to be to satisfy opening a mere account? This isn't an illegal alien opening a Bank of America credit card account! I've legally been in the country for over ten years and contributed in many ways to the economy and tax base through consumption and income!

Or maybe you just have to be a permanent resident to be deemed unworthy with the above. I wanted a business account and an account where I could use electronic funds transfer to my Roth IRA, because I can't do that with my joint account.

So I protested. they needed to see my Social Security card, because apparently I've been in 'cahoots' with someone with a different SSN (like, my husband?) in financial dealings. Gotta love that Patriot Act. I did get a chequing account, finally, just like I did when I didn't have credit to begin with, or even my Green Card yet, and when I did with two other credit unions. The person who helped me open my accounts apologized.

2 Responses to “Finding out what Enough is and moving toward it”

  1. zetta Says:
    1172415041

    I'm shocked that they were going to deny you a checking account. Good for you for sticking up for yourself!

  2. Amber Says:
    1172424664

    I agree with Zetta

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