Category: Life's Expenses

I’m not charting/posting an index today.  I spent my time away from my family doing taxes.  I used the Turbo Tax, like I’ve done for years.  I had to upgrade to Quicken 2008 to get everything to transfer and allow me to continue downloads after April from my credit cards and brokerages. 

I’ll give a review of Quicken 2008 Premier after I’ve had a little more time to play with it.  First impression is good though.  A problem I’ve seen with Quicken/Turbo Tax in the past and again this year is that it doesn’t pull over all dates for my trades.  For about a third of them I had to enter the sell date for my options manually.  I don’t know what made some import correctly and others didn’t.

As expected we owe due to my capital gains for 2007 being more than I planned for.  I’ll work it a little differently from now on.  After I build back up from the losses I currently have on paper (which will be realized losses before too long), I’ll get a feel for the rough amount of capital gains I’ll have for 2008.  My current plan is to adjust my W-4 to take out extra so I still owe some next year, but not as much.

Our effective tax rate ended up being 21.98% of my taxable income this year compared to …

I have to wonder sometimes if I’m addicted to money.  I think about it all the time, I constantly strive for more and never seem to have enough.  I used to nag a friend in college to stop smoking and one day he replied, “why would I stop, I like it too much.”  I guess that’s why I let me addiction to money run free.  I like it too much.  I’m not sure how much is too much though.  I still keep my family and friends as a higher priority, so maybe I’m only addicted at a socially acceptable level.  Now that I’ve admitted it, I hope I don’t get over it soon.

I use these 10 11 reasons why I like money (among many others) to help keep me motivated to stay active in my investing accounts.  I almost called this “Why I want more money”, but that’ll be a whole new list when we get to that level.

1. I can buy $15 worth of desserts at the mall with my wife and son and not feel guilty knowing we could have bought a whole 1/2 gallon of good ice cream for less than $5 at the grocery store.

2. I can have a surprise $1200 car repair and not let it affect how we live our daily lives.

3. I can relax when I see the soaring costs of a good four year …

Since my wife starts her new job within two weeks we are both trying to get all the little things done in our lives that take away from the focus and attention she’ll have to devote to that for a while.  I’m following suit in the hopes that I’ll have a new job soon too.  The verbal offer I got still hasn’t materialized into a written offer so I’m back on the job hunt in the meantime. 

We both took our cars for some overdue servicing yesterday.  We had delayed these repairs since we had the chance to both be unemployed before the end of the year and were pinching pennies in anticipation.  I drive an aging Honda Accord and she drives an Infiniti G35 that’s four years newer.  Both are paid off, but now starting to cost us in servicing expenses.  My timing belt was overdue on years to be replaced, but still had a few miles left to go.  Her car was making some “interesting” sounds including the brakes I figured were a few months away from needing to be replaced. 

We both went to our respective dealers.  When I went in I only asked for the timing belt to be replaced and was asked if I wanted an oil change since they didn’t have records of my last one.  I said sure, I think I’m due.  I …

The debate over good debt and bad debt may never be agreed upon.  Pick any day and you can find an article written about the benefits of borrowing money to fund certain major purchases such as a mortgage for a house or a loan for a car or something more frivolous.  I’m adding to the articles that do not think debt is good for most people.

People start getting into financial trouble with bad credit card debt which is a type of loans to deal with.  Those who bought houses with interest-only and variable interest loans know another type of financial problem to deal with.

My wife and I were smart and maintained good credit scores as we have always paid all bills in full and on time each month and maintain a high level of available credit that we do not tap into.  Both factor into improving our credit scores.  We never focused on trying to determine what is a good debt ratio for us, it just worked out well for us since we never bought what we couldn’t afford.  In turn, we get better interest rates when we borrow and stay further away from paying needless interest on debt.  We save our money first instead of paying some company interest.  After we have the interest boosted savings we buy whatever items others might use debt to get sooner.  It’s a double win for us, interest earned and …

We’re trying to plan for our next big vacation and I started to wonder how much should we spend on a vacation.  For various reasons we haven’t been on a vacation in four years and we came back from that one pregnant.  We missed vacations over the past few years due to being pregnant, having a newborn, starting a new job for my wife, saving for a house and feared unemployment for me.  We’re getting past all of that and now have to decide how much we should spend on our next trip

For those who have followed my financial thinking you know that using debt to fund a vacation is the last thing I’d do just as I wouldn’t consider taking money from our savings account or investment account.  That means we have to budget for vacations from our disposable money.  How much disposable income should we spend on vacations?  5% sounds like a nice round starting point if for no other reason than it’s small enough to stomach not investing this money and big enough to add up over time.  As much as I love to save money, vacations are one of the most important ways to spend money and enjoy life. 

To me, we need to consider these following factors and how much they add to or take away from my starting point.  My …