Originally posted on Facebook - 2018-12-028-002 Values which are Material or important to us

In this post, I am using values to mean dollars and cents and material is used quantitatively and qualitatively. So here goes:


Recently I started using Money Market Funds as a savings spot after:

~Not meeting the criteria to earn interest on my funds via other sources and

~Not being willing to expend funds on the transaction costs at this time.

Thus, seeing TT$0.83 as interest earned; was a material amount as it represents a change in where I was and I now had funds which could compound in a short space of time (3 months),

Now this interest was not earned easily. It meant:

~A huge adjustment towards my attitude towards accessing funds,

~Making a tough choice to access funds which I had put away to meet an upcoming bill and

~ Leaving other funds which I was supposed to use during the month, to earn possibly, $0.01 in interest and to continue to be held in other accounts so that I could hope that I could meet a payment.

Another material amount which I dealt with recently was a TT$13.00 deposit to an account to keep it active and to create a buffer to meet upcoming bank charges,

This account is now held at a Mall rather than in easy access of the neighbourhood and rather than incur transaction charges to go to POS to deposit the funds, I decided to:

Locate the branch and the ATM's for ease of access in the future.

I await the delight of the branch staff who now have to deal with a deposit of TT$13.00,. Yes, there were 3 singles as we call one dollar notes and I did not go up so that there was some extra for the account.

However, as I can be in the neighbourhood of an ATM which belongs to my regular bank, I can start making small deposits to my account in the hope that in time, the funds will reach a level to earn interest.

Yet another material amount which I am going to schedule at some point in time, is a weekly National Insurance payment for a part time person.

Now in reality, the salary bands for National Insurance start at about TT$200 per week, so in a month with 4 Mondays, the total contribution may reach about TT$120 or so.

However the benefits are:

~I can continue to prepare NI forms,

~ I can prepare TD4's at the end of the year

~ I can obtain a photo ID & proof of address of a person via an old TD4 or an old drivers permit. I can rely on a person's representations as to the class to which they belong, that is either Z or regular and document the conversation.

So, there are different types of materiality and what may be material today, may not be seen as material tomorrow. However, that story is for another day.