Saturday, February 11, 2012

A Double Insult

The wife and I were lying in bed this morning and talking.  I think we were drinking coffee actually.  Sometimes when we get to bed late on a Friday, we (and by we I mean me) will make coffee and bring it back to the bedroom and watch a comedy while enjoying it.

Friday night the daughter had a jam session.  She has weekly voice lessons and the business where the voice lessons are at was hosting a jam session.  Basically every student worked separately on a song and then they all come together to jam and work on the song.  There were so many students that showed up that they created 4 different bands and took turns on the stage.  Each band had 2 vocalists, 2 keyboardist, a lead guitarist, a rhythm guitarists and a drummer.  There were actually so many drummers that each band had 2 but only one played at a time.  Other than having to sit through “Let It Be” approximately 20 times (each band did it 4 times before leaving the stage and then each band got one more turn later) a good time was had by all.  We did not get home until after 10:30 and did not get into bed until 11:00 or so.

So anyway, we are sitting in bed and talking.  For some reason we were talking about life insurance and more specifically how much I had.  Early in our marriage we had term life insurance (and we actually are still paying on that monthly) however I have been purchasing more life insurance through my work.

Here is how it works, each October we have to enroll for insurance (medical, dental, disability, eye, life, etc).  With each year you can bump up your life insurance amount.  The amount it tied to your annual salary and basically you can go up one multiplier each year.  I began several years ago and I am currently at 4 times my annual salary.  Add that to my term insurance and you have an amount that I certainly would be comfortable with but the wife is not (hence our discussing this over coffee).

The discussion continued for a bit and I then mentioned that in 6 years she would have a nice amount of money should I meet an untimely demise.  I threw out a number and she immediately suggested that I was incorrect in my calculation.  Since my degree is in mathematics…well “them’s fightin’ words”.

I am not going to divulge my salary here but let’s say for instance that I made $35k per year.  My current life insurance would be 4 times that (let’s forget the term insurance for a moment).  That would put my death worth $140k.  In 6 years I would be up to 10 times my annual salary (10 is the maximum multiplier).  The wife did the math in her head and came up with $350k however I had thrown out a number more like $500k.  What the wife failed to calculate was that I planned on making $50k per year in 6 year’s time.  If you assume that, them my math is correct.

I quickly explained why I was right and explained that she was basically insulting me on two levels.  On the one hand, she questioned my ability to do math and assumed that her math was right.  Secondly, she assumed that in 6 year’s time I would have made no progress in my career.  That is a double insult.

She was quick to apologize (aptly twice).

Jon

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