A Reverse Account

From The Virtual Pen of Maria V. Eyles

          Financial tools are helpful in not only aiding us to understand our relationship to money, but also our relationship to ourselves in the world. You’ve heard of the “reverse mortgage,” a financial tool that allows many seniors to stay in their homes mortgage-free. Undoubtedly this lessens their fear of being old and helpless in a volatile world economy. Well, I’ve perfected a tool called the Reverse Savings Account. A reverse savings account can bring you lowered anxiety and increased confidence  in your understanding of exactly how the world economy works in a way very personal to you.

          A reverse savings is free and readily available to almost everyone!
But first you will need a few preliminaries: a limited income; a dwindling savings account; and some dire or impending emergency expense such as major car repairs, expensive medical treatments or dental work, or perhaps an explosion of broken appliances.

          In addition to these, there are two other important elements needed to achieve a true reverse savings. The first is a source of chronic economic drainage. Though I am sure many examples have already flooded your mind, I will throw out a brief list: a child anywhere from ages 1 day to 45 years old; a jalopy; several pets from the rescue center; a freeloading relative; a friend who constantly borrows.

Besides these siphons of savings, the element of surprise is mandatory. Surprise elements such as unexpected lay-offs; notice to vacate; a 300% jump in tuition, rent or HOA dues; or one of my favorites—a lapsed insurance policy, or its equivalent, The Fine Print,—all these guide you quickly to your goal of a reverse savings account. 

Now let me explain exactly how the reverse savings works using a true example from my own past two weeks. First, I learn that I need a crown on my molar. If I wait much longer, there will be the added bonus of a root canal. The crown requires a down payment of $600. So I decide, over the course of three sleepless nights in which I dream of my teeth falling out in a homeless shelter, to bilk $300 from my IRA and to extract the other $300 from my checking account.

Note carefully that this act of pulling out and setting aside money for a Special Purpose will inevitably trigger a deluge of unexpected expenses and bills—the drainage and surprise elements we talked about—often within hours. This sets the reverse savings laws of physics in motion. For I blundered upon this little known law that parallels the adage, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” It is “The World abhors an excess.” Lo, now you are armed with the scientific theory behind the reverse savings.

So we collected the $600 on the Friday before the Monday dental appointment. Second step: On Sunday night my big toe swells up, turns red and throbs angrily. Therefore, we do-si-do our dentist with our podiatrist, even though it hurts to dance, and on Monday morning, the podiatrist numbs then cuts out my ingrown toenail. Yes, you may have noticed that a side feature of the reverse savings account is a psychic portent that somebody or other is going to stick one or the other end of your body with lidocaine on a Monday morning, no matter what.

Notice that the accidental switcheroo means that the $600 is sitting idly around my checkbook doing nothing. Although it is earmarked for the dentist, it is not actually inside his safe with the daily revenue. No, it is sitting nonchalantly in my account as an excess, the perfect situation for the reverse savings to kick in!

         Because I am lucky enough to have good health insurance, the podiatrist’s visit did not count as a legal reverse account transaction (or R.A.T.). Yet in only hours, the specter of another huge expense arose when my beloved dog, a blue shepadoodle named Raphael, went into a crisis with his chronic immune system ailment. The four-year-old Raphael had been doing fine for almost two months, but this afternoon my skies turned gray-blue, as I rushed my boy up to the veterinary hospital in Atascadero. I had no time to think about the reverse account until it was checkout time.

Imagine my disappointment when the vet’s office visit was compassionately reduced to a mere follow-up, a piffling $29. Hardly enough for the reverse savings to set off. But aha! The treatments and take-home meds came to just under $270! Do you, too, see the pattern here? Hallelujah, three hundred dollars!  Halfway home. (Or homeless.)

The next day brought better health to Raphael, and hassles with the plumber and under-sink leak ($55) and the new dishwasher installation guy (prepaid, sigh!). These latter are still fighting each other, and the boxed dishwasher is still sitting in my office under the office window leak, which adds the thrill of my homeowner’s association involvement to the mix. This ensures me a daily parade of workmen in my condo to keep things entertaining for Raphael. No wonder the guy is sick to his stomach. 

“Mmm,” I mused over my doggie blanket laundry, “I still have $245 left in my checking from the $600 for the dental work. To achieve a true reverse savings, I need another person or source to pillage $250 more from me since technically, you want to go at least five dollars over the original amount. I wonder what…? Oh! That’s it!”

“It” was some kind of sticky liquid seeping over my newly unbandaged ingrown toenail. My excitement grew as I saw “it” was originating from under the clothes washer. Could it be? Could it be…?

Reader, it was motor oil! Gobs of it. Can you believe my luck? A dying washing machine! Whew, right on time, too, and you betcha, it could cost well over $300 to replace.” Wow! I'd better run out and buy a lotto ticket! I speculated cunningly.

Not believing my good fortune, I ran to check out my Home Warranty protection program. Ha! There it was in The Fine Print: “Neither the washer nor dryer are covered in your premium policy.”  Silly me, getting paranoid like that for no reason.

          From this moment, the oiled gears of the reverse savings account zoomed off. Look at how simple the accounting is on a reverse savings! A brand new GE washer from Best Buy ($289), plus sales tax ($50), plus installation and haul-away fees ($69). The only reason I did not jump on the Best Buy extended warranty was that two of Raphael’s four pharmacists called on the cell phone while I was speaking to the Best Buy stereo guy (eh--stereos, washers, vacuums, what’s the difference…) announcing the completion of two of his medications: one at $50, and one at $65. Add this to the $300 vet bill, and my total reverse savings account total was minus $799. All this for very little time or work invested on my part.

         

My goal completed, I  finally staggered into my bathroom. Such relief! Only, when I get up, the toilet seat slides right off the bowl and clanks onto the floor. Dumbly, I pick it up and stash it in the back seat of my car.

On my way to Home Depot, Lester at the gas station is eyeing me strangely. “Hey, lady!" He points the gas nozzle at my face. "Uh, I don’t think that porta-potty is going to work very well there in your back seat. You gotta put something under it, connect it to something.”

I smile smugly. “Little do you know, Lester!”

Lester doesn’t know what you now know, which are the advantages of a reverse savings account: Your confidence in evaluating any financial move or non-move is bolstered by the Excess Law, and you can accurately predict the red side of your ledger from now on. Your anxiety is replaced by the peace of knowing that a Reverse Savings Account stems not from lack of planning, but from A Reverse Savings Economy (ARSE), and toilet seat or no toilet seat, you will always have your ARSE to fall back on.

A Reverse Account by Maria V. Eyles

Copyright March 2011

All Rights Reserved