I’m Mr. Casual today, only dropping into the office for a short while then on my way to downtown Chicago for a national leadership conference. Early this morning as I was enjoying coffee, I receive a message on my phone from Amtrak. I had booked far in advance my ticket to downtown Chicago – a few days down there and back home again. A very relaxing trip, only $82.00. This morning I receive this text: “We wanted to let you know, Mr. Bertrang, that train #27, the Empire Builder from Chicago, Illinois on Wednesday” (that’s my return trip) “has been cancelled due to equipment availability.” (I thought Amtrak was in the business to have trains, equipment). “Unfortunately, we don’t have any other transportation available. Please give us a call, talk to an agent, look at your travel options. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for being a valued Amtrak customer. We will see you on board.” Well, not today, because now I need to make different arrangements. So I had made arrangements several months ago for my $82 round trip ticket. I can get there, I just can’t get back in a timely fashion. So I looked at airfare today – way too expensive on this short notice. Instead, I need to drive four and a half to five hours due to the weather, and if I’m looking at mileage, at the IRS mileage rate and also just parking my car at $50 a night, my total cost is now a little bit over $500.00.
Here’s the take away today. You need to plan all options in your life, all the financial options in your life. You plan for the best, but shouldn’t you really plan for the worst? You should have additional options available. That is the same way regarding your financial life, and I would like for you to consider purchasing my book “Investments Don’t Hug – Embracing the Life Insurance Asset” available on Amazon.com or audible.com. I, as the author, discuss many of the options that are available to guarantee that you will get to where you need to go then back again. It’s not always a smooth ride, but you need to have options. You need to have what-ifs taken care of.
For more information about my book, please go to investmentsdonthug.com.
I’m Mark Bertrang, author of “Investments Don’t Hug – Embracing the Life Insurance Asset”.
