Procastinating Actually Made Money?
I’ve written many times about how much my tendency to procrastinate has cost me - it’s usually not a pretty site when the reality dawns on my that my laziness has a dollar value. It’s one thing to make foolish choices and lose money; it’s another to lose money for doing nothing. But a couple weeks ago, that same tendency actually earned me extra cash.
We’re still dealing with the car accident, slow and steady, and have finally reached an agreement on the settlement amount. The best part is that it took no work on my part. The week of the accident, the insurance company offered me $2,100 for my car if I wanted to keep it. As I previously mentioned, we’d just put a lot of work and money in the car just 3 months prior and I wasn’t happy with that amount. What did I do? Nothing.
Life was very busy at that same time with vacation and three shows I was working on for my sewing business. I didn’t have the time to devote to this issue, so I just let it slide. The insurance company called several times, usually catching my voice mail, but I kept brushing them off. At one point they also called the attorney I retained to deal with the personal injury side of my claim and he directed them back to me as I had asked him to do. He also sent them a letter stating that I was managing the property damage portion of my claim and that I was also unsatisfied with their current offer.
About a week after that letter, I get a revised offer letter that gives me another $550 for my car. Now, this isn’t a huge jump, but it is enough for me to be content. Would I like a little more for my car? Of course, but I’m also not interested in jumping through more hoops to get it either. In my mind, this extra cash almost covers the new clutch we put in my car and is a fair offer considering the actual value of my car. Also, during this time, we’ve established that my car is drivable and the partner has done lots of work to make the body look better. The partner is now driving the car daily because of my vanity issues and because he commutes 75 miles a day and my car gets 35mpg and our other vehicles only get 15-18mpg.
I finally called the claims agent back and I’ll be driving over to sign some paperwork and leave with a check this afternoon. I originally rejected the in-person idea since I hate driving, but as I was writing this post I realized their office was 2 miles from the bank which I need to visit anyways.
This timing works out well because the partner and I finally agree that we need to purchase another vehicle, soon! In a couple more weeks we’ll have a new little one in the house and our “family” car options have almost evaporated. I don’t trust my car, safety-wise, to use it as a family car, plus the partner will be driving it, and our Blazer has had problem after problem lately and I’m stomping my foot hard on putting another dollar into that thing. We’re now deciding on what type of vehicle to get, but thats a whole different post.