Unless I write about what I’m going through financially, which has been laziness and tax frustrations, I have had very little to contribute lately.  I keep seeing others posting re-hashes of the same stuff and am basically stuck in a loop of repetitive concepts.    I’m not dead, I’m just not writing much.  As things come to me I’ll post them, I’ve got an idea started, its just not fleshed out.  I’ve been doing a LOT of chores/projects lately and that tends to limit the time for blogging.

For several months now I have been slowly, slowly discussing with the IRS details of my 2006 tax filing.  Slowly because first they sent me a form and notice asking for more than twenty thousand dollars.  They had gotten some misinformation from a company about how much money I had made (by tens and tens of thousands of dollars).  That was clarified and then they responded by saying I owed much less, but still owed.  The problem with the details lied in the fact that there were errors on several filings from several different entities.  I learned an important lesson: make sure you’ve dotted your i’s, crossed your t’s and then double, triple and quadruple check your i’s and t’s.  Search out the rest of the alphabet and make sure that the details are perfect.

In looking over the data for this tax fiasco I have found a few more errors where if I re-filed I could get some money back from other tax years [too tiny of an amount to get active about].  I’m going to avoid re-filing because I don’t want to get flagged for an audit and since I’m already on the radar I want to stay clean and without fault.  I’m relatively confident an audit would not turn up any issues, but I’d rather not go through the hassle.  The IRS employees don’t want to come to my house anyway

The good thing about taxes is that they help us have roads, military personnel, justice, and social services, but I sure would like to pay less legally.  The bad thing about taxes is that they are often more complex than they could be (despite the congressional ‘clarifications’ and ’simplifications’).  Taxes fund things that  we as tax payers don’t like.  They fund bureaucracy that at least feels like its slow and costly.  However, we’re blessed to live in the United States and I hope that the taxes I pay will be used well for the growth and development of this country and the world at large.  May the benevolence of the U.S. stand strong and continue on… just without some of the perceptible waist.

With the price of grocery items going up all around the shopping aisles I’ve been thinking about ways we can reduce our grocery bill.  That’s not a huge surprise, I’m sure.  Yesterday while on an errand trip with the family my wife asked me if we could run over to the farmer’s market near the mall we were at.  I conceded (much more willingly than a certain political candidate did recently) and we went over to what was a sad excuse for a farmers market.  There was one farm there and the rest of the booths were bread makers, people re-selling pictures they’d picked up in bulk somewhere else, and young forever products.  However, the one farmer there was selling produce at a price significantly lower than our local grocery store for much of the items (except artichokes).  It just so happens that we’d already picked up produce earlier in the week, but my wife did pick up tomatoes and a huge bundle of green onions.  She picked up more tomatoes and onions for $2.50 than I would have expected to buy for $4.00 at the super market - only fresher and larger and greener (or redder in the case of the tomato).

Check out your local farmer’s market and make sure the fresh produce in your diet (you do have fresh produce, don’t you?) is getting into your home for the best price you have available.  You’ll want to consider the cost of gas, but I predict that for many folks a savings of $10.00 or more will be possible if you buy produce regularly and in quantities that reflect a balanced diet.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post I’ve had a paradigm shift in how I look at credit cards.  My past attitude is that credit cards were evil without much in the way of exception.  I don’t have the same strong opinion any more.  Before I’m struck down with hate email or comments with great intensity let me clarify that most people who don’t like credit cards, when provoked to a good, long think, will agree with me.  The credit cards that get abused are a symptom!  Just like money isn’t evil by itself, credit cards are not evil by themselves.  If you pay off your credit card each and every month and maximize your return on the credit card’s reward program then the credit card is not a problem for you.

The symptom of debt is actually a symptom of the root problem: lack of self control.  If you understand where your finances are and you maximize your use of the card within the constraints of your budget, you might be able to pay for your family’s vacation in rewards.  James, a long time reader of my blogging (I don’t recall how James found me, but I’ve been grateful for the things I’ve learned from him and his commenting), actually left a comment stating that’s what he does some time ago.

My dad, a financially astute guy, uses his Discover card for as many expenses as he can and maximizes his rewards this way.  I have to admit to thinking this was crack smoking crazy until I realized that I was putting the blame on the wrong thing.  I’m not recommending everyone get as many credit cards as they can or that folks use credit cards if they can’t control themselves when they have access to the credit cards, but I am saying that I recognize that my previous stance was legalism.  As Romans 14:23b states: “…whatever is not from faith is sin.”  Don’t spend a dime that is not spent in reliance on the Lord.  This could be spent virtually with a credit card or literally with cash, but if you’re doing it out of compulsion and not in the abiding life of Christ, then its not the right attitude or way to be spending money in the first place!

This isn’t just a paradigm shift, this is a right-aligning with what the word of God teaches about walking by faith.  If I make a law about credit cards then I have failed to see the fullness of my relationship with Christ in the area I have created the law in.  I died to the law and the nature of the law when I was identified in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.  I’m going to pay off my credit cards, cancel all but one, and then as I abide in Christ, I’ll focus on my heavenly relationship, knowing those earn eternal rewards, and use the Discover to maximize the earthly rewards which might just be used to help those in need (Romans 12:13).

With this last trip to Indy I was watching the price of gas because every ten cents of gas price increase cost me roughly $20.00 $10.00 [editor: fixed bad math from tiredness] more for the trip. My car is a Honda CRV, it gets roughly 32 miles per hour (not the EPA gas rating, but with AC and various other things in play, that’s the average). I had to drive over 1,000 miles and so that meant about four fill ups (including driving around in Indiana) per direction. Each tank fill up was 12 gallons or so [it holds 14 gallons, but you have to pick where you can get gas driving through Kansas]. We ended up paying closer to $4.00 a gallon at most locations. The first lesson learned: know the gas math of your trip so you’re not surprised.

I mentioned the $4.00 a gallon above. We left on Memorial Day Weekend. This is a classic time for gas stations to jack prices up. Somehow they don’t call it price gouging I watched the price of gas jump by ten cents between Thursday and Saturday when we left. By taking a day off and leaving one day earlier, I could have saved some money (though it would have cost me a day off).

Lastly, we’ve still got one Discover card and this Discover card has a special 5% cash back bonus on various purchased at different times of the year. We’re doing our best to pay off the discover card as quickly as possible. However, since I knew we’d be spending so much money on gas we pre-paid the amount we had budgeted for gas on the discover card to get the cash back bonus. This is part of a paradigm shift I’ve gone through, but I’ll write about that later. Credit cards are a major temptation when our minds aren’t focused on heavenly things and so we get caught up in their trap - a clarifying blog post will be forthcoming. We’re not using credit cards for credit, this was a pre-paid spend that will allow us to get some relief, minor as it is, on the cost of gas. We didn’t use it for anything but pre-paid, known expenses and came out having pre-paid more on the card than we spent. Between June and September Discover is offering 5% cash back on gas - we’re going to participate in that discount.

So: remember to do the gas math, remember to plan, as best as you can, around known pricing schedules, and figure out how to maximize your dollar.

So two Saturdays ago, on the May 24th we set forth out on a journey half way across the United States to go to our relative’s house. As I have mentioned before, we had a great computer incident wherein computers and puke contacted one another and it cost me some money to get replacement components to keep working while on the road. We’re home now in Aurora, and I took my Mac Book Pro into the Apple Store at Cherry Creek Mall and asked what it would cost to have it repaired. Gulp. Wow. Blurp. Narf. Pretty much the cost of having the Mac Book Pro repaired was going to be the cost of a new Mac Book. A new Mac Book with a smaller screen, but with everything else faster and better than I had on my Mac Book Pro. I’d not lose the use of the Mac Book Pro, but I would lose its portable usefulness since the screen is damaged. So after discussing things with my wife I opted to scrape out some cash from the emergency fund and buy a new Mac Book. I have to have a laptop computer and I have to have a keyboard and screen that work.

Why did repair cost so much on a computer that should have only needed a new display and keyboard? Because puke is a bio-hazard. Shipping and handling of the computer suddenly sky-rocketed because the laptop had been violated of sanitation. Of course keyboards and computers are notorious for harboring germs, so this seemed a bit of an over-statement, but company policy is company policy. The new computer is almost up and running with what I need to take the Mac Book Pro out of service. I have to install some more software for development work, and some Adobe graphics stuff. It’s not how I wanted to spend this money, but at least I had it.

The moral of the story is that when you travel with a laptop you risk its damage or loss. Don’t discount kids, thieves, other passengers or travelers. Real life happens and having an emergency fund is just about one of the smartest things you could do.

I’ve been super-duper busy with work, but I’ve also had some crazy stuff happen which has kept me busy. Turns out that also my WordPress install was borked as well so I couldn’t post because of a bug in the code. I fixed the bug (it’s good to be a geek) and now, since life has slowed a bit, I’ve got a lot to write - regular posting may just come back soon

Yesterday, on my way across the country on a family trip, one of my daughters threw up all over my laptop.  Most of the keys work on the keyboard except for a few on the left hand side that got hit the most.  The display is borked and has a whole bunch of damage.  The harddrive is working and I’m actually using it to type on now.  Fortunately the destination city, Indianapolis, has an Apple store.  I’ve purchased a new monitor to use with the laptop and I’m hoping that the Apple store can replace the keyboard tomorrow.  This is not the way I wanted to spent my emergency fund.  This is exactly why you should always backup your data.  Mine is safe - but I wish that it was a little easier to access as certain keyboard keys do not function at present.

Most importantly the daughter is doing well and hasn’t thrown up again today.  I’ll take a sick computer over a sick kid any day.

I had to laugh because to fix a problem with my evaporative cooler I had to buy some plumbers tape. Plumbers tape is a very thin tape that gets wrapped around threaded pipes or screws and the tape helps keep a water tight seal around the threading. I picked some up for just under a dollar at Lowe’s along with a few other odds and ends and headed home.

I climbed up on my roof to secure the tape to the water valve floater’s stem so that the water would stop entering the floater and making it a sinker (thus flooding my swamp cooler and causing water to flow out of the overflow hole). I wrapped the threaded stem, secured the floater and climbed off the room and let the water fill up the swamp cooler again and waited for the overflow. No overflow took place and the problem was solved.

I then walked into the garage with the plumber’s tape and reached to put it on the hook where I would expect to put such a thing. That is where I found the last purchased plumbers tape that I had all along. Ha!

I have been working on what was supposed to be a quick binge cycle for a client. Quick as in two weeks. After a month there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, I just bit off more than I should have. Personal finances have been handled, but I’m not where I want to be. This blog has not died, its just on break while I earn a living, which is part of what this is all about. I just wish that Internet Explorer were a kinder, gentler browser