Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The paperless society

This morning I moved a mature IRA from one bank to another, because the first bank was charging me $30 a year just to use my money! Do you know that by the time I got home from those two transactions about a mile apart, I had 26 pieces of paper, or 27 pieces if I counted the check, 25 of them 8.5 x 11. Both banks used to be called something else--or at least one was, and the other was started by officers of a former savings and loan. I can remember the days when they rolled the certificate into a typewriter and I signed a little card for the beneficiaries which stayed there. In those days, I thought it took a long time, but now with computers it is much longer. Plus, the computers don't even update your account until the next day, so on one sheet I had to write in the new amount. But the staff are always pleasant, handsome and cheerful, so it's nice to go to a bank and enjoy the comfy furniture and have a chat. Just make sure you have plenty of time. Plus it is a beautiful, sunny day in central Ohio. My artificial flowers are doing fabulously even in the cold snap.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you mean you moved a matured "CD" from one bank to another which might have been your IRA. Anyway, I was always a firm believer that as years wore on things should become less complicated. Thanks to lawyers and our government, it's never happened. A company's customer service, for example, is where you used to get help. Now they hide from you in a maze of phone menus.

Norma said...

No, I mean I moved a mature IRA. The CD didn't go any where, because I had a check in my hot little hand. It's a rollover, so technically, the IRA still existed even thought the CD didn't. Mature the adjective can mean having attained a final or desired state (like wine), and keeping it there any longer certainly would have soured it. What would have been incorrect, but who cares and I often use it this way too, is referring to it as an IRA account, because the A means account. But thank you for the careful attention to my language. The blogosphere is so full of erudite, helpful people.