Don't be inactive!

You gotta hand it to those bankers.

When it comes to separating you from your money, they’re creative geniuses.

Most recent case in point: On my most recent statement for by business charge card, there was a $20 item. The description: “INACTIVE ACCOUNT FEE.”

Well, now! They want to charge me $20 for not using my charge card? Come on! I agree it’s legitimate for them to charge me interest when I charge something, because I am in effect borrowing money from the bank to pay for something. No problem there.

But a $20 clip for doing nothing?

I protested. The young banker where I do business professed to be surprised by the charge, and called someone somewhere out there in call center land to see about getting it removed. After surprisingly little persuasion on his part, the answer came back, OK. The charge was removed.

(I can envision what was going through the mind of the person on the other end of the call: “Darn, another one caught on. Oh well, there are millions more who will just pay it and not complain.”)

You have to look for life lessons wherever you can find them, and I found one here:

Don’t be inactive. Stay active.

I don’t mean to necessarily go out and charge something. I mean keep moving, stay actively engaged in life, don’t sit around and do nothing.

If you’re recently retired or fired or laid off, don’t sit there and bemoan your fate. Get off your chair and reinvent yourself. In fact, go to www.rebootyou.com and look around. You’ll find all kind of resources there to help you.

Either that, or send me $20.