My credit-card company recently notified me that my annual fee would be raised to $795, but I shouldn’t fret because I’d get thousands of dollars back in benefits. A quick study revealed that managing the benefits would be a part-time job. I shut my account and moved to a card with a reward system that doesn’t require a spreadsheet to track.
“It isn’t that I’m incapable of researching policies and figuring out how to optimize everything to my advantage. I analyze complex investments as a profession—I find this type of work fun. It’s just that sometimes it’s optimal to be suboptimal.”