Anderson Cooper“I am listening to people’s questions and getting answers. I am least of all interested in any TV anchor’s opinion, and least of all my own.” — Anderson Cooper

Yesterday afternoon as I was catching up on work and submitting an overdue expense report, my thoughts wandered off to how someone like Anderson Cooper manages to keep up with his business expenses. Does this guy ever sleep at home?

Apparently the answer is no. Here is an excerpt from his blog last week just as the London terror plot was unraveling.

“I’m in London. A few hours ago, I was in Kiryat Shmona, Israel, listening to a barrage of artillery fire. Just after we finished the broadcast this morning at 7 a.m. local time, we started to get word of the alleged terror plot in London. I saw the story pop-up on my BlackBerry, and sure enough, a short time later I got the call from producers at CNN.” They wanted to know if he could get there. He replied, “Yes” and noted in his post that it certainly wasn’t easy.

Side rant: Jeanine and I are officially over Anderson Cooper. I was over him the third day after Katrina hit. Jeanine was over him when CNN gave Aaron Brown the boot to make way for his 360 drama-rama. We were both Aaron Brown fans.

Just because Anderson is gay, does this mean we have to like him? And no, I’m not breaking any news here. It’s been widely reported that he’s gay. Wonkette and Queer Day beat me to the punch years ago. Philo Hagen wrote in 2004, “Even his Wikipedia entry says he was ‘out and proud’ until his CNN contract forbid him to talk about it.” Wikipedia has since revised the entry.

Anyway, back to finances and the cost of carrying business expenses. Let’s do some math: if Anderson is on the road 250 days a year and his per diem is $50 a day that’s $12,500 he’s carry at some point until he requests reimbursement. Add hotel and airfare and we’re talking at a minimum $100,000 he has to carry on his credit card throughout the year. By the way, Anderson still flies commercial unless CNN needs him in London in a New York second and then they arrange a charter jet like they did last Thursday.

Okay, so I admit that Anderson is not the typical business traveler (I’m certain all his expenses are going on the corporate American Express), but it makes you wonder how much money the individual road warrior has to float each year for company expenses. And heaven forbid, what happens if you get behind a few months. I once knew a guy that got six months behind in filing his expense reports. I can’t imagine what this was costing him each month. He must have carried a hefty credit card balance that year and I’m sure the interest was costing him dearly.

I spent quite a bit of time looking around online to see if any of the finance sites had calculated personal costs the average business traveler might incur by fronting money for business travel. And there wasn’t anything written about it. Am I the only one thinking about this?

What I did find was this nifty gadget to help you stay on top of your receipts. Ever heard of NeatReceipts Scanalizer? I hadn’t either. But here’s how they entice you to buy on their website, “Any business traveler can tell you, the worst part of a trip is coming back and filling out an expense report. Filling out forms, dealing with those crumpled receipts — it’s such a pain in the neck, half the time it’s not even worth it!”

Well, yeah, it’s worth it… who can afford not to stay on top of things and submit their reports in a timely manner for reimbursement. I’m curious if anyone has read anything about the impact of carrying business expenses with regards to one’s personal finances. If so, please share.