Hubby’s workplace is switching over to direct-deposit of all paychecks. They’ve known it was coming for almost a year now, and as the deadline approaches, the mood is getting ugly. People are downright enraged over it, and honestly, if union regs didn’t forbid it, I think they might have called a strike.
What’s the problem? Many of the employees don’t have bank accounts, and what’s more, they don’t WANT bank accounts. I’m utterly flabbergasted over this-- how in this modern era, can you get along without one? Mind you, there are no minimum wage jobs at his workplace-- the lowest salary you can pull is 30K and many make sgnificantly more.
Hubby told me that he had asked some delicate questions among the ones who don’t have bank accounts (nearly half of the employees!), trying to see how they managed to get along. Apparently, they buy money orders to pay bills which must be paid by check, and do all of their transactions by cash. They pay fees at banks and grocery stores and the like to get their checks cashed every week.
I was in the bank the other day. I had a complicated transaction and all of the tellers were busy, so the bank manager took me into his office to do it. While he was working on it, we chatted a bit, and I found out he had just returned from Hubby’s workplace. They had set up a table inside the front door to assist people who wanted to set up their accounts before the deadline and to give out information to those who needed help. If the employees don’t chose a bank, they’ll automatically be assigned to XYZ Bank which has some fees and other pain-in-the-butt procedures that they can avoid by chosing a bank of their own. He said another couple of bank chains had set up tables, too, so there was plenty of choice.
All of the tables were ostentatiously ingored. He said people actually crossed the room so they wouldn’t even have to walk by. Out of almost 1,500 employees that passed by those tables, only a handful stopped for information.
Are they hoping if they ignore it, it will go away, or like with the Medicare sign-up thread, will banks be deluged the day before the deadline? I don’t know. It just amazes me how many people don’t have bank accounts.
It extends to their retirement savings, as well. Recently, they had a meeting for employees who are about to retire. Hubby spoke to one man who was utterly dejected when he left the meeting. He had just discovered that he couldn’t afford to retire and didn’t know what he was going to do.
This man had worked here for over twenty-five years. He had no savings. He had lived in one of the houses provided by the workplace (which has a rent of about $200 a month.) He had no children. Once he retired, he would have to leave the worker house, and he couldn’t afford to buy another, or even pay rent on an apartment on the reduced retirement salary because of all of his other bills. I was astonished by this story. What did they guy and his wife spend all of their money on that they had nothing to show for 25+ years of a 50K salary?
Another of Hubby’s co-workers wants to retire soon. We’re friends with this guy, so we know quite a bit about his financial situation. He recently sold his house, which he had owned for nearly thirty years. He had no equity in it, so he’s got a full mortgage on the other house he bought. He told us how much he had in his retirement saving, and I nearly fell over, because Hubby has only worked there for eight years and we had almost double what this guy saved in twenty.
I just don’t understand it. Don’t people stop to think about how much money they’re wasting on money orders by refusing to have a bank account? (Not to mention the pain in the ass it must be driving around to purchase them.) How can you reach retirement having not realized what your pension will be and that you won’t be able to live on it unless you save?
Hubby and I are careless with our money, I’ll admit. We live above our means and we buy whatever we want, but we have made plans for the future. (Our retirement savings comes right off of Hubby’s paycheck before we even get it.) There are hundreds of savings and retirement programs his workplace offers, and they even send planners around to talk to people. It can’t be neglecting to think of it-- it has to be a REFUSAL to think about it.
Anyway, he found he has no savings and no income left over, so he decided to go to college to make more money. My solution would be to spend less money, and I told him, “Give me your job–I’ll happily take 50K!” But to each their own.