Category Archives: Informational

The Cookie Killers

Posted by anachostic on July 30, 2025 No comments

I read in the news today (oh boy) about a new thing called nitazenes which are magnitudes more deadly than fentanyl. This news sort of sucks the wind out of a post I had planned to make long, long ago on fentanyl, but I guess the story is still the same. So now’s the time to write it.

When you hear stories about overdoses on street drugs – copycat pharmaceutical drugs especially – because they’ve been cut with something much stronger, like fentanyl, the question comes up: why are drug dealers so stupid? Why kill off your customers? And while in most cases, the dealer isn’t the drug maker, you can still point the finger up the ladder: why are you killing your customers? And it’s not that they want to, they really don’t. They’re just making cookies.

If you read much of my blog, you should know I don’t cook at home. I eat out for nearly every meal. But, I can cook. You know, I can do the basics. And another basic that I can do – and I do it well, I might add – is chocolate chip cookies. So I could also be a drug maker, I suppose. And the results would likely be the same.

Let’s look at the cookie making process. If you haven’t made cookies before, it’s quite simple. Put some flour, baking soda, sugar, more sugar, eggs, and butter in a bowl and use a spoon to mix it all up. Then you add chocolate chips and mix them in. Then you portion them out and cook them. That’s really it. Even I can do that.

So let’s say that customer research has found that 7 chocolate chips is the perfect number of chips to have in a cookie. Companies that specialize in cookie making will have spent a lot of money on equipment that ensures that every cookie has 7 chips in it. No more, no less. And they will have quality control to ensure that remains true. Because when you’re selling cookies, your customers demand perfection because they are spending their hard earned dollars with your company.

But my cookies? You might have some cookies that have 7 chips, or 5, or 3, or some might have some extra, like 9 or even 12. Additionally, some cookies might have a extra mix of butter in them, which is always a treat. That’s part of the charm of homemade cookies.

The problem with drugs is, 5 chips might be a little disappointing, but 9 chips will kill you. And to be sure, I didn’t want to kill you. That’s just how the cookie crumbles.

Self-Hosted Album Art

Posted by anachostic on May 19, 2021 No comments

I have an extensive music collection on CD, which shouldn’t be news to anyone who’s visited this blog. I rip all my CDs to my local Plex server. I’m a little particular about the album art for the albums. I want it to be an exact representation of what is on the shelf and I want it to be in good quality.

For multiple varied reasons, I sometimes can’t find suitable album art online and in that case, I do it myself, scanning and cleaning up the cover art. The result is something unique. Duh, since I wasn’t able to find it elsewhere. And I think it would be a shame to keep it to myself if someone else had a need for that artwork.

Up until now, I’ve been storing these files on Flickr. It’s not been bad. Even with their recent restrictions on free accounts, I don’t really have any worries of exceeding their limits. But, as mentioned in past posts, I’ve been wanting to be more independent, so I made the move of the files to my own server.

And now you can get the cover art files from https://700cb.net/albumart. It’s a little gallery that took all of about 45 mins to code up. It displays smaller images and when you click one, it shows a larger image in a new window. The small size is 500×500 and the large is 1500×1500. These should be usable for anyone’s general usage. You can save some time by right-clicking a small image and choosing Save Target As.

And now, when I add new stuff, I don’t have to go to a browser, open Flickr, log in, do the upload, and blah blah. It’s a simple file copy for me on my network. Easier all around.

On The Side

Posted by anachostic on March 20, 2020 No comments

Today I learned something. While working from home, one of the cats was being stupid as usual and batted something off the kitchen counter onto the floor. Naturally, I went to go clean it up and when I picked up the mess, I was surprised to see water on the floor.

"Where did this water come from?" I opened up the lower cabinets and immediately suspected the coffee maker that’s been sitting under there for months. But that didn’t make any sense, surely I would have drained the water tank before I put it away and even if I didn’t, why would something start leaking now?

I started pulling things out of the cabinets, which prompted the cats to get in the cabinets… ugh. And what I found to be the source of the wetness was a 12-pack of 7-UP. I pulled the box out and went to the sink and started removing cans. One can was noticeable hissing. Its seal had broken. And there was a second can that was deflated as well. What the fuck!

I cleaned up the drained sugar water from inside the cabinet and went to pull out the other 12-packs I had in storage under there. Oh no. This has happened before, and somehow, I never noticed it. Two cardboard boxes were absolutely covered in black mold. Excising the contents showed that two of the cans had broken seals, who knows how long ago.

I got out the Lysol and removed all the mold from the inside of the cabinets. Unfortunately, the soda never drained out onto the floor where I could see it, so that means it all went under the cabinets. Someone’s going to be in for a surprise when they remodel that kitchen.

But here’s the lesson. The 12-packs, also called fridge packs, like this:

This is not how they get stored. You have to turn them onto their sides, so the cans remain upright. Maybe the soda ate through the seal opening (I wouldn’t be surprised), or maybe the seal just failed from age or poor quality. In either case, had the can been upright, the carbonation would have just escaped and the can would be depressurized. But, with the can on its side, as pictured, well, that liquid is going to go somewhere. And I found out the hard way.

Tuna Talkin

Posted by anachostic on May 13, 2019 No comments

I like tuna fish salad and that is what this post is about. I have tried a lot of different tuna at different places and here is a quick roundup of the different majorly-available versions.

When I moved here in 2004, there was a local sports bar called Touchdown Eddies. They had incredible tuna salad. I would eat there kind of regularly and was never disappointed. Sometime around 2007, they closed down and I have missed them ever since. In fact, my very first Facebook post (I was a really late adopter) was a lament on the demise of Touchdown Eddies. And since their closure, I have been trying especially hard to find tuna salad that is as good as theirs.

My quest for the best took many years, but you should know, I have found it. Obviously, my preference may not be the same as anyone else’s, so I’ll run through my experiences and indicate what’s different about each recipe that makes it unique.

Subway – This is the barebones version of tuna salad. Just mayo and tuna. Inoffensive and probably a decent choice just because it’s so simple. There’s nothing odd to turn anyone off or strike up any allergies.
Firehouse Subs – This recipe has relish in it, which is not to my liking. If you like your tuna salad with a bit of sweet in it, this might the one you’d like.
Jason’s Deli – This recipe has hard-boiled egg in it. It’s ok, but not exactly what I’m looking for.
Panera Bread – This recipe has mustard in it. I ate it for quite some time wondering what the weird flavor was in it. It tasted a little like lemon to me. One day, it was much stronger than usual and I was concerned that something was spoiled. They also season it with pepper, which is nice.
Toojays Deli – Another bland version like Subway.
Jersey Mikes – This recipe has celery in it, to give it some crunch and also a tiny bit of bitterness or tang (as celery has). They also use pepper mixed in.

And the winner for me is Jersey Mikes. It ended my search as it has the same special ingredient that Touchdown Eddies had. I originally went to Jersey Mikes and I got my usual test for new sub places – turkey. It passed, so I ate turkey subs there infrequently. One day, I asked for a sample of their tuna and was sold. I only eat tuna there now and I visit multiple times a week instead of once every couple months.

I had told myself numerous times that if I found a place that had tuna salad as good as Touchdown Eddies, I would be eating there all the time. I have found that place and am making good on my promise.

Revisiting Taxes

Posted by anachostic on June 22, 2018 No comments

For a few years, I used to do a post on taxes, specifically regarding the “marriage penalty”. It was a rant post because I was married at the time and we were getting dicked over by this penalty. Things have gotten a lot better in that regard lately (as in me getting divorced), so I stopped making those posts back in 2013.

I saw a post by someone who was complaining that the new tax laws were changing his taxes for the worse. By using an estimating calculator, he had to increase his withholding rate, but was getting more back per paycheck. It sounds like a strange con game, give me more and I’ll give you more. And simply because of that weirdness, I got wondering how the marriage penalty shakes out under the new tax law. So I went looking.

Here’s the surprise, there is no marriage penalty anymore (for the common person). If you are a married filer, your tax table breaks at 2X the single income – at every bracket. Except… if you make over $300,000 each. Like I commented, not the common couple.

It would make sense that any tax “improvement” would offer a gain for normal income people and a proportionally higher gain for extraordinary income people. That’s a gripe for another post. The point of this post is that the marriage penalty is gone.

Just for retrospective kicks, let’s look at what could have been if we did not have the tax “reform”. Looking at the 2017 tax brackets, as in all other years, the disconnect happens in the upper tier of the 25% bracket. If you are single, you would be bumped to the 28% bracket at $91,900. If you have two married people making $76,550 each, that couple will be taxed at 28%. That is the marriage penalty – you are bumped to a higher tax rate sooner from your combined wages. Said another way for clarity, if you and your partner made $77k each and were not married, you each got taxed at 25%. Then you get married and with no change to your salaries, now you’re paying 28% in taxes. And that sucks even harder if you get married later in the year, because your employer has been withholding taxes expecting you to be in a 25% bracket. You will have less withheld when you do your taxes and learn you’re now at 28%.

You might think this new tax table is awesome, especially if you were previously hit with the marriage penalty, but it’s not better or worse, just different. The marriage penalty primarily affects DINKs (dual-income, no kids), especially young professionals, and in these modern times, married gay people. The tax system up to now has favored and encouraged one married member being a breadwinner and the other being a homemaker. This high income of the breadwinner has no extra income from the homemaker and is able to utilize the full deduction of both people against one income.

So, now that the incentive is gone to have two people living under one income, all the people who structured their marriage in this way, on purpose, or by accident, or by default, they are going to pay more in taxes. That could be the case for this post I read.

Not Getting Value for Dollar

Posted by anachostic on November 14, 2017 No comments

This was a draft from 2015 when Florida’s online unemployment system was revamped and launched to much disaster. It sort of became a rabbit hole and I stopped diving deeper, although there was so much more to add. Because I’m lacking in ideas for posts, I’m going to throw this out, but it’s as complete as I really want to make it. Being two years out of date, you can imagine the shitshow is forever ongoing.

Spurred by significant problems experienced by someone close to me, I did some investigative work just for fun. The subject: Florida’s new online unemployment system called CONNECT.

It started simply enough, I went to the web site and looked at it. It’s written in ASP.NET, The HTML markup is seriously ancient. This really scares me. A brand new system shouldn’t be coded like it’s from 1999. Of course the other warning signs are there: built to work with IE 8/9 (2009-2011), Safari 4/5 (2008/2010) Firefox 16/17 (2012), and worst, resolution: 1024×768.

I started filling out a fake application. It used ASP.NET postbacks heavily, which is bad. After submitting some totally wrong information, I was told that the SSN I entered was already in use and I should log in using it. An invalid SSN… in use?

In the source code, the logo used an ALT tag that said “QUEST”. That’s odd, because the site is called CONNECT. Easy online searches show that Massachusetts’ unemployment system is called QUEST. Really. So Florida bought software that was developed for someone else? Yes, and it’s worse than that.

QUEST was built by Deloitte Consulting for Massachusetts sometime around July, 2013. They paid $46 million for the site. Again, they paid $46,000,000 for this website. But Deloitte was smart. They double-dipped. They got Florida to pay $63 million for theirs. Ahem, $63,000,000. For writing one severely flawed application that has proved to be a failure in both installations, they collected $107,000,000. Sure they got fined for their fuckups to the order of about $6 million, but that’s pennychange. The track record of this company is absolutely amazing.

That’s really what this is about. You would not believe how much this company fucks up and continues to remain in business and get new work contracts for millions of dollars. Boston journalists have done a pretty good job of exposing this company’s garbage, but you can find out their failure is well-documented in searchable online news stories. In spite of that, the company is heavily embedded in the governments, with former employees now running state departments – a conflict of interest that is conveniently ignored.

Pennsylvania: Deloitte launched the worker’s comp system in 2013 and complaints abound. They built the Dept. of Welfare site in 2012 and it’s reported to be full of errors and malfunctions. They created the COMPASS system back in 2002 and there’s no reports of issues with it. Either Deloitte did good work back then, or Internet news reports weren’t as prevalent. The company gets so much money from the Pennsylvania government that PA had to reconsider its bidding system. Despite this, a company contact says that they win bids because they consistently receive good reviews. In 2006-2007, they won nearly half of the contracts they bid on, so clearly they can’t be getting favoritism.

Massachusetts: Deloitte’s failures in this state are incredibly well-documented. They were fired from a project after getting $54 million out of a $114 million contract for a system to process tax returns. They almost got fired for the unemployment system mentioned previously. Yet, they landed a contract for the DMV. Time will tell on this one.

California: Another incredible disaster, where Deloitte got sued over charges of incompetency and corruption. They got fired from a project to track services for the disabled. They implemented the worker’s comp system at twice the original budget. They were fired from the project to link the court systems, after getting hundreds of millions in payment and costing the state billions. Also, they created the unemployment system, also error-prone.

Florida: Deloitte was fired by Miami for incompetence not on IT, but on legal council on employment. The unemployment system needs no additional discussion, other than FL is talking to another contractor to fix the problems.

Virginia: Deloitte has been contracted to improve systems for $100 million. Stay tuned.

Oregon: Deloitte just won an $18M contract to oversee an integration project for state-federal health exchange.

Rhode Island: $105M to create the infrastructure to manage the healthcare insurance integration.

Minnesota: $10M to take over the healthcare exchange built poorly by a different consulting company. They were the original first choice, but lost because of cost projections.

Connecticut: An awesome quote by the CEO of the CT Health Insurance Exchange: “We looked at every operations area that we did and we said where can we outsource. … We have outsourced all of our third-party operations — why should we be doing something that someone else can do better, faster, cheaper?”

They did Kentucky’s system, called KEWES in 2001. It cost them $20 million initially and $6 million/year in operation costs. I’m not sure if that’s all consulting hours.

This company also was chosen for Ohio’s unemployment portal in 2000. It’s written in JSP and has the developer changelog right in the HTML source. Wonderful.

Vaultz CD Storage

Posted by anachostic on November 2, 2017 No comments

There is this person at work who randomly offers things to people in my team. One person got some comics, another got something else. I’d been offered some things and never accepted. But, when I was offered CD cases, I accepted. I like CDs and I like storage.

What I got were two Vaultz CD storage cases. These things are pretty sweet. Because I’m shallow as hell, I immediately went online to see what these things cost. $65 each! That’s a pretty generous gift. But because of their quality and the fact I couldn’t find any reviews of these cases elsewhere, I figured I could devote a post to them. I need to use that “reviews” tag.

When I came back from my break, one of these cases was sitting on my desk. It was bigger than I imagined it would be and much more sturdy-looking, too. The gifter was there and I told her I would take the other case as well. I went with her to her car and pulled it from the back seat. Second impression: these things are heavy. I could sense the wall materials were pretty thick. There was no give on any of the walls.

Sitting on my desk at work, the cases were very imposing. One thing I tried was to orient them horizontally. This didn’t work for two reasons. The drawers are not square so they can’t be rotated and the case bottoms have rubber feet. So, vertical they remain.

Inside the drawers, there were many, many paper cd sleeves and some alphabetical dividers. I don’t know if these sleeves and dividers come with the units or if the previous owner purchased them separately. The drawers are felt-lined, which is a nice touch. Additionally, each drawer had two solid wood dividers – non-removable. This gave each drawer extra rigidity. Unfortunately, the back of the drawer is not higher than the drawer itself, so you are able to pull the whole thing out without any stoppage. I guess you could attach a small extension to catch the drawer before it is fully pulled out.

When I got the units home, I emptied out the sleeves and dividers. Each unit is supposed to hold 60 CDs. I was able to get 31 CDs in one shelf, so the extra space could be good if you have fatboy double cases in your collection.

The locks on the units, surprisingly, are the same on both – they have the same key number. They work just as locks would. They aren’t heavy duty locks or anything, so don’t expect to be too secure. Locks are just meant to keep honest people honest. A thief wouldn’t break or pick the lock, they’d just carry the whole case away.

In summary, quality-wise, these are great cases. You’re paying a decent bit of money for them, so it’s good to see you get the nice, heavy materials for your money.

Before loading the CDs in the cases, I gathered up all the sleeves and organized them. The cat was annoyed that the box was not for her.

Slow Bleed

Posted by anachostic on October 10, 2017 No comments

Do you have a credit card? I’ll bet you do. Do you use that credit card at restaurants? You probably do. Do you check your receipts against your credit card statement? Well… Do you even take your receipt when you leave?

Why go through all that hassle? When I explain that I log every receipt into MS Money, then download my transactions from my CC company and match them all up, you might be thinking it’s a colossal waste of time. Maybe you’d relent a little if I explained that I can track spending habits and trends. I can see that I’ve been spending more on gas. Are gas prices going up or am I driving more or is my car in need of a major tune up? I’m spending more on food. Is it because I’m eating more expensive meals, or is it something a little more sinister?

It could be something more sinister, and you could be subject to it too. You may never even know it’s happening. And the culprits are banking on it. It’s illegal. It’s fraud. It’s theft. Do you want to be on the receiving end of that? And yet, at the same time, when it happens to you, you might just react with a shrug. Meh.

This is something that has happened to me about a half-dozen times, and I used to shrug it off, but not anymore. What I am talking about is credit card charge modifications, post-sale. When you go to a restaurant, you are presented with a bill. You give your credit card and then are presented with a charge slip to fill in a tip, total, and sign. Then, the tip is added to the original sale amount and the transaction is finalized. Does this finalization happen in your sight? No, it does not. Can you be assured that the tip entered is what you wrote on the paper charge slip? No, you can not. Can you verify that the tip entered matches what you wrote? Only if you keep your receipt.

Shitty employees are getting wise to the fact that many people don’t keep their receipt and even fewer verify the charge later. So, these assholes simply add a dollar to the tip. It’s such a small amount that few people would notice it and those that would notice might not be inclined to make a fuss about it. These dollars add up for them.

The first couple of times it happened to me, I was annoyed, but didn’t think complaining was worth the hassle. Then it happened at a place I trusted and the feeling of betrayal compelled me to act. And now, I’m not ever letting it happen again. You want to steal a dollar from me, I hope you get fucking fired for theft. Because I know I’m not your only mark. Beware the victim mentality. You might think (and I had moments, too) that your tip was modified because it was an unfair tip amount. You should have tipped more, and you should feel bad for that. You should consider the extra amount an education in proper tipping etiquette. No. Fuck that. It is your choice entirely on how much to tip. No one else has a right to make that choice for you or to demand that you give a different amount.

I just caught another instance today. A local pizza place that I go to weekly put a dollar on my tip for a dine-in order. Tipping for dine-in and carry-out orders (and the proliferation of tip begging in general) is for another post, but suffice to say, I don’t tip for counter service. So, having my transaction differ at all at this establishment is highly suspicious. And tonight, I will handle it. Again, it is a major breach of trust for a place I’ve been visiting for over 10 years to do that to me. It’s infuriating.

You should not let it happen to you. It’s a major change in habit if you haven’t done it before, but you need to do it. At a minimum, you can take a picture of your receipt and check it later. But ideally, you should begin tracking your transactions. MS Money Sunset Edition can be used without registration and is freely available from Microsoft. Don’t feel like you have to pay for Quicken every year for the same basic functionality. Get started now and stop the bleeding.

May The Odds Be Forever In Your Favor

Posted by anachostic on May 1, 2017 No comments

I ran across a letter recently that was addressed to the participants of a company’s retirement plan. From what I gathered, it seemed like a pension plan. You know, those old-fashioned things where you work X number of years and they will pay you Y dollars for the rest of your life? Well, if you haven’t paid attention to that, (and if you haven’t, that’s excusable, because pensions are pretty rare anymore) you would find that companies are doing anything they can to avoid having to pay out those Y dollars.

I read a book a while ago that explained the multiple schemes that were being performed to avoid any sort of pension plan funding. That book is Retirement Heist. It’s a good book and you should read it. This letter to pensioners was just an illustration of those exact cons, and the letter was selling it like it was the greatest thing ever.

Here’s the gist of the letter. Because of two laws, and I need to write these laws out because they are totally insane, the Moving Ahead For Progress In The 21st Century Act and the Highway And Transportation Funding Act of 2014 (blahhhh), pension plans are allowed to calculate their numbers differently. Differently in that they can make the badness go away.

So, in this example, before the laws, in 2016, the pension plan was short $8.3M dollars to cover the costs of the members’ retirement. After the laws? $0. Percent funded before the law? 86% After the law? 104% The law completely fixed the problem of not having enough money! Amazing!!!

How was this done? The projection of how much money would be needed was based on interest rates for the last two years. Why are they looking at interest rates? Because that’s how the fund stays solvent while money is being withdrawn, through investments with interest. If the plan doesn’t make enough money in interest, the corporation has to pitch in extra money to keep it going. Hmmmmmm.

If you have a savings account in the last couple of years, you know that you’re not making any money off of it. And a pension fund wouldn’t be making any money either. So because the fund is not sustaining itself from its investments, that means the corporation would have to supplement it with additional money. Corporations everywhere collectively said, “Fuck that” and instead spent the money on lobbyists to change the laws.

They succeeded. Now, instead of considering that interest rates in the future will be the average of two years, now it’s going to be the average of 25 years. 25 fucking years. Fortunately that range includes the late 90’s and early 00’s, where interest rates were around 5%, instead of 0.1%

So, do you get it? They refuse to accommodate current market conditions and instead want to pretend the future is going to be as great as the past. But here’s the thing, if these corporations would just fucking suck it up and pay into their pension funds now, like they are supposed to, when things get awesome in the future like they CHANGED THE LAW to reflect, they wouldn’t have to pay anything then, because the funds would be fully funded or even overfunded.

Now the infuriating part. This letter says all of this. It doesn’t hide anything. They can tell the truth because a) lots of people won’t understand what just happened, and b) it’s the law; it’s all perfectly legal now.

Whole-Life Hatred

Posted by anachostic on October 11, 2016 No comments

If you follow any financial pundits, eventually you will hear them say that whole-life insurance is a bad choice, how it is a poor “investment”, and sometimes, how you’d be stupid to buy it. Well, I was just reviewing my numbers and I’m not sure I understand what all the hatred is about.

First off, you need to think about why you have life insurance. The purpose of life insurance is to make things easier on the ones you leave behind. Primarily, in my case, it is to pay off my mortgage. Whoever I leave behind should not have to be saddled with a mortgage payment when that was my responsibility. Other assets like cars could be repossessed, so what? My credit score doesn’t matter anymore when I’m dead. The secondary purpose of insurance is to replace whatever income I was contributing to the family until whoever is left behind can get back on their feet.

So these two reasons are enough to have life insurance unless you are a total loner and have nothing you want to pass on to someone else. But that’s only good when you’re dead. What if you keep living?

If you don’t know anything about life insurance, here’s some quick info. You typically buy a “term life” policy, which is effective for a period of time (a “term”). If you buy a Term 30 policy, it is active for 30 years. Buying it today, the policy will expire in 2046. If you die in 2047, your beneficiary gets nothing. But, by that time, I would expect your mortgage would be paid off so there’s no burden on your heirs.

Whole-life policies have no expiration. As long as you keep paying the premium, you get the benefits. However, they are vastly more expensive (I’ll share my numbers in a bit). Additionally, whole-life policies have a cash value, which can be accessed as needed, either through an expensive loan or as a retirement account when/if you get to retirement age.

That’s the part that finance people hate. Whole-life is so expensive, but your cash value is locked up and there’s little way to access that money without spending a lot in interest or waiting until you’re old. They call it a savings account for people who can’t discipline themselves to save. It’s almost like a 401k, but without the tax advantages.

Whole-life insurance is a hard sell and brokers will push on you pretty hard to sell it. As such, there’s some salesman-ish stuff that gets promised. For example, I was sold on the idea that the dividends from my whole-life policy would eventually pay the premiums for my policy, then I’d basically have free life insurance. Awesome, huh? Well, it will happen, eventually. I just have to be really patient.

Ok, let’s look at some real numbers. I have $250k in life insurance. $100k is in a Term 20 policy and $150k is in a Whole-life. I pay $118/mo for the whole-life and $16/mo for the term. Now do you see why people freak out about whole life? It’s almost 10x more a month.

There’s not much to say about the term policy. It has no cash value and expires in 2027. In 2028, I will only have $150k in life insurance. Hmmm, that sounds like a good thing. I’m not dropping to zero, and I don’t have to worry about qualifying for a new Term policy at such an old age. It almost sounds like a “plan”.

So how about this Whole-life policy? Well, since 2007, the cash value has grown to $9500. The value is growing at about $1300/yr. But wait, I’m paying a little over $1400/yr in premiums. So my net cost is about $100/yr, which is actually almost half the cost of my term policy.

So, what am I glossing over? For one, the $1300 in cash value increase hasn’t always been that high. Four years ago it was $1200, and since 2007, the average rise has been $1055/yr. But, the value should continue to climb through the magic of compounding. But, I just want to say that I’ve got 9 years into this, and you wouldn’t see numbers like these right off the bat.

You could argue that I’ve spent $12,771 in premiums to gain $9500 in cash value. That sounds horrible. But that also works out to getting a 150k life insurance policy for $363/yr or $30/mo. And that average cost is over 9 years. That number is going drop over time as the cash value increases relative to my constant premium payments.

One more number to give consideration to. After 9 years, my annual dividend is $781. My annual premium is $1400. I’m a little over halfway to the point where my dividends will pay for my premiums. That’s going to coincide well with the expiration of my Term policy (which would also reduce my premium by almost $200/yr).

Let’s recap the whole scenario. I have $250k in life insurance now, when I am most vulnerable with the most mortgage debt and the most to lose if I die. If I had a family, that money would be needed to pay bills and help replace my income. 11 years from now, my Term life expires. I have less life insurance coverage, but I also have less financial burden. If I had a family, they would be grown and on their own by then. The insurance would just pay my reduced debts. I would also have $200/yr less in expenses because the policy expired. Looking even further ahead, when I don’t have any reason to have life insurance because all my bills are paid, then I can start withdrawing money from my whole-life policy. And guess what? I still have the life insurance policy. By then, my dividends will probably be paying my premiums, too, and I won’t have that $1400/yr expense anymore.

When you hear financial people trying to sell you on a “plan”, it can be hard to swallow all that information and difficult to see what the future will look like. It was hard for me as well, but I took a leap of faith and now that I’m a significant way into the “plan”, I can see further ahead and understand that yes, it was a good choice. Early on, it would have been easy to say, “I’m throwing away my money!” But like any investment, it takes time to grow.

Anachostic