In 1990, Sears let Bob go after 18 years working there. They gave him a choice, take a lump sum of 500.00 or a direct deposit of $90.16 per month until his death. We chose the monthly payment. Since then, on the 1st day of each month, that money direct deposits in a savings that is only for that money. The only thing we use it for is each November we PAY THE TAXES on our home. The money goes in, I get and email from bank stating it is in the account and the balance. the email comes on the 1st, and on the 6th while typing like I am now, I thought, its time for bob' check to go in and realized I did not get an email. Logging into the bank, I saw that his deposit had no gone in the account since Feb 1. FOUR months of no check deposit, which means I did not realize for FOUR months I did not get and email. I did NOT look at the Savings, I did not even realize it did not go in.
I have never contacted the Insurance company that deposits, and had no clue how. Dragging out the Box, i found a letter that notified us of when Sears went out of business, it was changed to a company I will not name... I called and got the nicest young man, he listened to bob say it was ok to talk to me, and told me someone had put the account on hold and forgot to take it off, and that the 4 months check would go in the account in 5 business days and it did on the 3rd day..
How Could I Not realize I did not get the email. or check the account. MEMORY PROBLEMS! The thing is the Joke was on Sears when they laid him off, because the money from that small amount has been 27,000 dollars instead of 500.00. It has covered every penny of our homeowners taxes for 34 years. I am thankful I remembered this month. I have learned my lesson. IF I don't forget.
17 comments:
You did amazingly well, knowing how to contact them, and then find an actual person to talk to. Wonder why it was put on hold?
Hari Om
Taking the monthly option was a winner...so was getting the hiccup sorted. YAM xx
I have to use pliers so much now! Dont you wonder how many people grabbed up $500...not even thinking that a year of the per month was twice as much as 500? Let alone for multiple years.
To take the monthly deposit was a clear choice, since in six months you had already exceeded the $500 lump sum. Great that you had no hassle from the insurance company in restoring the payment and catching up with the arrears.
Hello,
I have had hubby open those hard things for me.
The monthly payment was the better choice.
I am glad it was an easy fix over the phone.
Take care, have a great day!
Things like that, where you just get an email and it's direct deposited and there's nothing else for me to do, are easy to forget about. I need the act of physically having to write something out to make me remember. I probably wouldn't have noticed that it hadn't been deposited either.
That was a good choice to take the monthly amount instead of the lump sum. Pretty stupid of Sears to offer it that way.
It seems that Sears maybe didn’t have the best accountants because the monthly option turned out better for you both, not so good for Sears.Good for you noticing the non deposit issue, Sandra, and better yet for getting it resolved.
Yes, that was a good choice to take the monthly payment and I'm glad you caught that it wasn't being deposited!
Good for Bob getting the monthly payment. That was smart. Yeah, the joke is on Sears. They got sued, you know, for the way they treated their employees. JC Penney was bad about firing employees just before retirement! They're all really despicable. But, I'm glad that the new company handling y'all's retirement funds came through in the end.
I'm such a tightwad that even on my worst day I don't forget about money. *lol* Well, I am half-Scottish and it shows. 💙
WHAT a wonderful way to save for ins etc. We have an account like that too.
I have not tried any soy milk. I buy Lacataid 1%.
Hugs Cecilia
"HAI/Grunt!" ... oh lady, you crack me up! I d-double-dare you to send this to Vanilla Soy's marketing department. Love their inscription at the top -- "To support strong bones." (What, in order to open the darn product?)
Taking Sears' monthly option was brilliant! At least you discovered it before too much time had elapsed, and everything was made right without too much stress. I think y'all deserve a nice dinner with some of that 'found' $!
First off instead of pliers try an old fashioned pair of nut crackers, they were perfectly for those small bottle caps. - Wow the Sears thing was amazing when you realize how much more they paid out over the years. We all have our "senior" moments.
I still say you are too hard on yourself. We do that all the time. My husband heard beeping a couple of days ago in the garage - and called me out - I took a video of it to tell our owners - and it was a battery charger!
But I know you are worried and are courageous finding things out.
Sounds like something easy enough to miss if the money is deposited regularly into a separate account rather than the one you use for monthly payments. At least you discovered it before you urgently needed the money, if I interpret your story right. And you did discover it, and fixed it, so really no reason to beat yourself up about it. And you also both made the right decision from the beginning, choosing the monthly payment.
Boy do I hear you on the Sears pension thing. They have changed several times the insurance carrier but thankfully we still get ours direct deposit every 1st of the month until Dave has passed. It has been a gift to us and has carried us through for a lot of years. 29 to be exact when the same thing happened to Dave.." "let go after so many years in management too. It in the long run has been a God send because our lives are totally better doing things we love now and having experiences we never would have had. Being from a Sears family (Dad was in department management since I was probably 4 years old. He "retired" after 33 years and didn't get much of anything as far as pension goes but they did fine too.
Faith and trust in the Lord has a lot to do with it for us.
I guess this is TMI but I am chatty today..(:0)
Sue
We keep our pliers in the kitchen, for obvious reasons. I think most of us wouldn’t have caught their mistake right away, snd I’m glad it was so easily corrected. ❤️
PS you’re too hard on yourself. Here we assume we’ll make mistakes and celebrate when we don’t.
That worked out pretty well over the years paying for your taxes. Sorry you had an issue but I'm thankful that you were able to get it all figured out and the money will continue to be deposited into the account.
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