Socks! Socks! My Kingdom for some socks!

I woke up in the morning to discover that I was out of socks! Really!

It reminded me of an episode in Black Adder:

Prince George on the left and Black Adder on the right.

BLACKADDER: Sir, if I may make so bold, a major crisis has arisen in your affairs.

PRINCE GEORGE: Yes, I know Blackadder. I have been pondering it all morning.

BLACKADDER: You have, sir?

PRINCE GEORGE: Yes. Socks. Run out again. Why is it that no matter how many millions of pairs of socks I buy, I never seem to have any?

BLACKADDER: Sir, with your forgiveness, there is another, even weightier problem.

PRINCE GEORGE: They just disappear. Honestly, you'd think someone was coming in here stealing the damn things and selling them off.

In case you are wondering, Black Adder was selling them off. The Prince was clueless.

Anyway, in my case, the population of socks in my cupboard has been dwindling as they got worn out and thrown away. So, I decided to buy some new socks in the evening.

I went to the nearby shopping mall and walked into Giordano for the first time in, er, 3 or 4 years? Made a beeline for the socks which were going at 4 pairs for $20. Got the shorter ones because they feel a bit more cushy compared to the ones of regular length, if you know what I mean.

8 pairs in all. I think they should last me another 3 or 4 years. Well, I hope so, anyway.


Funny!

AVIVA paid me $10,529.

On 28 October, I wrote a piece on single premium endowment policies and I revealed that I had one such policy with AVIVA maturing in November. 

I wondered how much would I be receiving when the time comes.

I received this advice last night:

Over 8 years, a $10,000.00 premium apparently made $2,175.00. I had previously thought the returns in the first 6 years were $800.00 or less. I was mistaken. My memory is unreliable.

So, the policy made $2,175.00 over 8 years. This means 21.75% spread over 8 years or 2.72% per year. 

Quite miserable even by endowment policies' standards. 

Still, it is better than what the SRS account would have given me in interest payments. Everything is relative, of course.

All said, this is a forced savings plan and, at one time, I thought it would be a good idea to force myself to save. 

This was money in my SRS account anyway and I wasn't doing anything with it.

On hindsight, I should have kept the money in my SRS account untouched and I would have had more ammunition to buy cheap stocks during the GFC.

I now have quite a bit of money idling in my SRS account which I consider as one of my 4 war chests. Not doing anything here is doing something too.

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How much more will Aviva be paying AK?