Very, very, very rewarding

I have a strange landlord. Two of them actually. They are very nice guys, and they take care of any problems I have in a timely and thorough manner. They just don’t show up to collect my rent on time, and they don’t provide any way of paying other than them showing up to take it.

Right now I still haven’t paid my rent for December.

Not just January.

December.

This isn’t really a problem for me. Luckily I’m not the kind of person who loses track of his funds or spends compulsively. Once I’ve earmarked the money for rent, it’s not going anywhere until my landlords decide they actually want it.

But it’s occurred to me that I’m basically given the equivalent of an interest free loan of several hundred dollars for several weeks at a time, with the one caveat being that any day I can be called to pay the balance in full. Being a bit of a pragmatist, I’ve decided this money can work slightly harder than sitting in my sock drawer.

It can’t work too hard. It has to be completely liquid and risk-free, for obvious reasons, meaning it’s tough to get much of a return. But it can get something.

So yesterday I went down to my bank to open some kind of interest bearing account to link with my current checking account. For some reason I was completely sure this would be a hassle free experience, despite my history to the contrary. Consider: when I opened said checking account in September, they would not allow me to open it at my current address because I had no proof of address (until my verizon bill finally arrived, as documented in a post in November). But they would let me open an account under an address that I freely admitted was not my actual address (my old address) and then change it later. All this is supposed to prevent terrorism somehow.

The bank representative had scanned my bank card and was all set to open the new account when he noticed the date on my original account. He then explained that any additional account opened within 6 months of the original account must be verified with ID like a new account. After 6 months you’re all good for some reason, even though the information you’re giving (particularly the address) would seem to become less reliable with the passing of time.

So even though I already had an account with them, I had to prove I was okay to open an account with two forms of ID and proof of address. Items that they already had copies of on file under my already opened account.

No problem. I hand the man my license. Apparently the debit card they saw fit to issue me is not acceptable as the second ID. They’d take a pay check, but not the insurance reimbursement check I had to deposit. They’d take a phone bill, but not the rebate check from the phone company I had to deposit. Both these checks bore my name and address.

“Do you have a bank statement?”

You mean the bank statement you sent me? The one you could bring up on your screen right now by scanning that card you won’t accept? The one you keep sending me emails about trying to convince me not to receive anymore (“less paper means safer banking”)?

As a matter of fact, no. I’m at the bank. Why would I bring my bank statement to the bank?

So I ran home and got the statement (along with my phone bill just in case) and went back and opened the account. All this for 2%.


I'd better be getting extra reward points.