Monday, March 11, 2013

Money Burning a Hole in Your Pocket

Snork Maiden's stepfather died. He was 80 years old. Her mother is much younger. Snork Maiden has gone to China to be with her mother for a while. Her mother wants to visit Australia later this year, maybe starting in late October for a while and think about spending more time here in the future. She wants to transfer some money to our account here to help pay her expenses in Australia so that she can be more independent than when she and her husband visited last time. If we still are living in this apartment we could try to rent her a furnished unit somewhere nearby. We saw a couple of these last year when were looking for accommodation for a colleague (in the end they stayed on campus), but they weren't that near here.

But she wants to transfer the money today. One reason is so that Snork Maiden can help her with the transaction, which involves moving a "pile of cash" between two banks. Snork Maiden said as well that:

"She is in a hurry because she doesn't want to sit on a pile of money for long.  She got a fixed-term pile of money that is ready to be harvested today, and she wants to decrease the number of transactions as much as possible. I suggested we could put the money in her saving account for the time being, but she said that was too complex and she has never had that much money sitting in her account.    It was my stepfather who dealt with their money, so she has never touched so many cash before, and even the thought of having that much of money in her bank account somehow worries her. "

In the past I heard she would give money away to relatives rather than hold onto too much. It made me think of this story. A lot of people asked how it could be that a 68 year old full professor in a low cost of living location didn't have any savings. One answer is that some people just don't seem to be able to hold onto money for psychological reasons. Obviously, I don't have that problem. So, I'm going to look after her money for her.

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