...a recent event in my life has caused me to take notice of a very important fact: i value my money more than my time. this is something that i have long since known deep down, but i've never vocalized it. the realization came when i decided to deal with my traffic ticket that i discussed earlier on the blog...
the advice given to me seemed to be 50/50 between fighting it and just paying it to get it over with. well, i'm not one to let my insurance go up for no reason (especially since i just got a discount)...so i sought my options:
1. pay it and forget it.
cost: $87.50 + insurance goes up due to ticket posting on record
2. get a lawyer to do the dirty work
cost: $200 (or more)
3. go to court and plead not-guilty
cost: court fees + fine after i'm found guilty anyway (hey, i know stl county courts -- they want their money!)
4. go to court and plead guilty with an explanation
cost: court fees + whatever the judge decides -- risky
5. go to court and plead guilty and ask for defensive driving class to keep the ticket being posted to my record
cost: court fees + cost of class
so i weighed my options and went for #5 -- super good idea!
court fees were $62.50 and the driving class will be $55.00. not that much more expensive than the pay and forget option -- but without the insurance backlash.
so someone asked me why i didn't just go for the lawyer option. they were concerned that i had to spend 3 hours in court and then 8 hours in driving class. my response was simple: it's so much cheaper to just spend the time and get it over with. it dawned on me that a lot of people pay the lawyer to take care of it just to save themselves the "time and hassle". now me with low income and free week nights, the court experience was more interesting than frustrating. not that i'd want to do it every month, but i learned a lot and felt like i took care of my problem without cheating. i took responsibility and still ended up ahead.
this is an especially interesting problem given that my boyfriend is completely the opposite--valuing his time more than his money. it makes for interesting conversations...but we can save that for another day.
5 comments:
A lady i work with just a ticket this morning...I'm going to be careful out there!
I don't want to waste my time or money!
Time is way more precious to me than money. I spend a lot of money for time!
I did the lawyer route once in Cape Girardeau, but Cape Girardeau kind of has a thing going on to make money and avoid the points on the license.
I was stubborn about one ticket that I came back up here and dealth with it because I knew the cop was just as wrong as a fat chick in a see-through teddy at a titty bar. I won, but I had also taken the time to build my defense against this pathetic excuse for a cop.
Unfortunatly he's probably still out there being a twit and taking people's money by force. I think if you win in court the officer that wrote the ticket should have the ticket amount deducted from his pay.
was that the ticket about your license plate?
Yup ....
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