I threw in the towel tonight over something I thought I was able to do. Although I haven't gotten anything in a while, I had two class action lawsuits over stocks where you have to fill out a long form, show proof that you bought (and sold) the stock, photocopy everything and mail it.
Experts have no decisive opinion over whether it's worth it for a small individual investor like me to do these forms. In the past, I've done some and let others go. The most I ever got back was $57. On some, I'd get a notice two years down the line that I didn't qualify -- and that's after they sent the form to me.
One of them had to be mailed by Friday; the other within a few weeks. Both are from stock purchases in the late 1990s so I had to find the paperwork from the purchase. I found some of it, but not all and had already devoted an hour or so to the process.
I wanted to continue because I feel pissed still over the lost money. However tonight I decided it wasn't worth the effort and I put everything away and put the forms in the recycle bin.
My justification is that we have just so much time and so much energy and thinking in a pure business sense the return on the investment doesn't justify the amount of work involved. But I still sort of feel bad about it.
I agree that we have to be conscious of our time and decide what is worth our expenditure of it. Maybe one task is not a burden to you, but for whatever reason, if it becomes a burden to me, I should decide if it's worth my time, just as you did. And we can't listen to the voices of the people who love to say "you just threw away free money" -- it isn't free money, you pay for it with your time.
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