Tracy's Tax Service

I prepared my father's income tax returns a week ago today. I had so much fun (ha ha) that I did ours, too. (In the past I've done Matt & Emily's also, but their tax situation is more complicated now.)

The two sets of returns (federal and state for Dad and Lew & I) were all accepted by the taxing authorities, and all of the balances due/refunds have been exchanged.  E-filing is great.

Tracy's Tax Service was open for one whole day.

Closed until next year!

Eagles, Snow, and Taxes

The last time I wrote a post was before the Super Bowl. Because the outcome went the way I hoped, I now will share that I was rooting for the Eagles. Congratulations to them! Fly, Eagles, Fly!

Old Man Winter has reared his ugly head. It snowed/sleeted all day yesterday. (Church services canceled for the second week in a row.) And I am listening to strong winds as I type this. You can go away now, Old Man Winter!

Yesterday I prepared Matt & Emily's taxes, and today I did ours. All e-filed! Just waiting for the State of Maine to get its act together and "Accept" the state returns. But otherwise, I am done. So Tracy's Tax Preparation Service is closed for another year. Have you filed yet? $$$

Taxes Update

I just e-filed income taxes for Matt and Emily. I did our own last week, so I just have my father's left to do. I am planning on looking at his tomorrow.

I found a great emoji to include at the end of this post. The title of it is "Money With Wings." Seems appropriate for the subject of taxes!

💸

I Will Buy a Candy Bar

Yesterday I received a letter from our credit union. If I don't use my debit card by the end of the month, they are going to deactivate it.

Reason: I haven't used it for several months, and they want to protect my account from debit card fraud. According to them, deactivating my card is a "security feature."

Lew uses his debit card. I do most of our online banking. We both have direct deposits going into our account. It is not as though we are inactive members. 

If I lost my debit card, I would definitely report it as lost. So what if I'm not using it? Nobody else is either!

Tax Time!

This afternoon I thought, "Gee, I should do my parents' tax return right now."  So I did.

I always start by putting the information into an Excel spreadsheet (which I carry over from year to year) and calculating what I think the taxes will be.

Then I input the data into TurboTax.  If it comes out the same as my spreadsheet, then I'm happy! If not, then I figure out why it's different. Any difference is usually due to a change in the tax law, so this forces me to at least try to understand it.

I am pleased to report that I was right on the money regarding my parents' taxes. Done and e-filed!

Two more returns to do (ours; Matt/Emily's) then I can close up shop for yet another tax season. I always look forward to closing up shop. 😊

Big Savings!

Today I called our cable company to talk about our TV plan. There are a couple items on our bill that represent "old" add-ons for which the company now has newer options for basically the same channels.

My question to the company: We want to keep our current channels, so will switching to the "new" add-ons save us money?

The answer is "YES!"

I am pleased to report that we now are paying $6 less per month for our cable TV!

😄

Checkbook Challenge

Dad's checkbook balance has been off for a few months. He knew he had more than his checkbook reflected, so no worries on overdrawing at least.

I told him I would figure it out for him. My plan was to back into what his balance should be over the next couple months.

But then Dad told me that I wouldn't be able to figure out where the errors were made.

So my plan quickly changed to figure out where the errors were made.

And I did it.

He said I couldn't do it, but I did it!

Challenge presented. Challenge met.

A Father/Daughter Outing

I worked from home today so that I could fit in some personal things that needed attention. One of those things was a trip with Dad to his bank to make some account changes. There were three people working at the bank, and they all ended up helping us at some point. We were there for over an hour and a half. We accomplished everything at the bank that we had hoped to. We had a wonderful time!  😀

Checkbook Fun

I keep track of our checkbook in an Excel file. I designed the spreadsheet myself.

After each year is over, I copy it over to a new file and update it to start the new year. Calendar year 2021 will be my seventh year of doing it this way.

One tab of my spreadsheet has all of our regular bills and when they are due next. I can hardly believe I'm putting in dates for 2021. Yikes.

Do you have a fun way of tracking your checkbook? I bet it's not as fun as my way! 😁

Nickels and Dimes

The cable bill we got this week was about $5 more than last month's.

I compared the line items and saw two increases.

Our plan went up by $1.50.  

Our "Broadcast TV Surcharge" went up by about $3.

In case you are wondering about the surcharge, the small print on the bill says this:

The Broadcast TV Surcharge is a fee reflecting charges assessed to <cable company> by the owners of local broadcast and local "network-affiliated" TV stations.

Whatever.

Cable companies.... The masters of nickel-and-diming!

Updated Credit Cards

One of my credit cards is due to expire in another month, so I wasn't surprised when I received the new card in the mail this past week.

Once upon a time I had to call to activate the new card, but now I can do it right online. That is a nice convenience.

Once upon a time the only other thing I had to do was cut up the old card and put the new one in my wallet. Now I also have to go to 17 additional websites to update my card information for things that are on auto-payments!

Having things on auto-pay is a nice convenience, but updating the payment information is not much fun. Each site is different in how this is handled, so it's an adventure to figure them all out. Fortunately I will not have to update them again for another five years!

They Care! :)

An interesting piece of mail arrived at home for me today. This plastic bag...

... and its contents.

Fortunately this check wasn't a time-sensitive payment. I will write a new check, address a new envelope, and put new postage on it.... Hey, wait a minute! I'm out 55 cents! (LOL!)

🖃 📫

Big Spender

I usually eat my lunch at my desk, but today I went out because I had to run an errand.

After my errand, I went into the Paper Store. Usually I go in there for one thing and then end up spending much more money than I had intended. Today, I spent nothing!

Then I went to the grocery store. I was inside for about 30 seconds. It was crazy! We are expecting a big storm tomorrow afternoon, so I think people were getting stocked up. So — again — I spent nothing!

Then I went back to work. Because I had saved so much money at the Paper Store and the grocery store, I decided to celebrate by visiting the vending machine. I bought some Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts.... YUM!

The Quarter

Tracy's Tax Tip

I believe I saw that the IRS is now processing 2016 income tax returns.

Once I have all of our information, I will be filing our return. I have already purchased my tax preparation software.

I am not counting on receiving refunds. Although we usually do receive federal and state refunds, these are never part of my mental budgeting process.

Over the past few weeks, I have talked with several people who said they are going to pay off certain obligations when they get their taxes back.

Huh?

What if they end up having to pay in? Sometimes there are surprises, unless someone is a tax planning guru.

My advice is to file early in case you have to come up with some cash by April 15th.  And if you end up with refunds, then you'll get your money back that much sooner.

Best wishes.

Editing

When Robert and Amy got married on Everybody Loves Raymond, Marie Barone made a scene at the wedding. Raymond gave a toast at the reception and said "editing" would help when remembering the day.

Although nothing happened at Kelsey's wedding to match what Marie Barone did, a little "editing" may be useful when we think back on the first half-hour of our R.V. ride to Illinois....

Let's just say we got the worst part over with first thing, which is how I like to roll anyway. (I always eat my vegetables first because — well — yuck.)

Family members who read this blog already know the details of that infamous half-hour. But in case we forget in the years to come, I will heretofore provide two brief memory-joggers:

• A fainting performance
• Money retrieval

And that's all for tonight! Dad (a.k.a. Derf) writes tomorrow. I'll be back Thursday with more wedding weekend commentary and pictures.

A Girl Who Wears Glasses

I had an appointment with my eye doctor today. It had been almost two years since I last saw her, and I knew that I was going to need a new prescription for my glasses.

My long-distance vision stayed about the same, but the intermediate- and near-distances have both gotten worse.

After some discussion about how much I use the computer and what height I like the monitor, etc., my doctor suggested I get computer glasses. They are different from regular glasses in that I won't be able to use them for driving — they won't correct for long-distances.

She said I will still need to get "regular" glasses at some point.

Lew was with me and we made the decision to go ahead and get both pairs -- computer glasses and what I am now calling "real life" glasses. We picked out frames and the office is supposed to call me tomorrow with the details about what materials are available for the lenses. (Some materials might not be available because of the strength of my prescription.) I will opt for the best-quality material that provides for the thinnest lenses.

And all of the special coatings for anti-glare, etc.... yes, please.

Two pairs of glasses with progressive lenses are going to cost a small fortune. But, based on recent experience, they will be adequate for probably three or four years. The initial cost will make me pass out, but in reality the average cost per day will be reasonable.

Being able to see well? Priceless.

"Home, James."

I don't play the lottery, even when the pot gets outrageously large. But I do sometimes wonder what I would do if I had money to burn.

The top of my list: Hire a chauffeur. I think it would be nice to have someone drive me around all the time. Because I have money to burn, I would let the chauffeur select his/her own vehicle since they would be doing all of the driving.

It would be especially nice to have a personal chauffeur on icky-weather days. We are expecting freezing rain tomorrow, so Lew is going to drive me to and from work. I guess that's like having a chauffeur except I'm not paying Lew nor am I buying him a fancy car.

Maybe when I'm old and gray — make that older and grayer — I will hire someone to drive me places. (I think the term for that person might be "taxi driver".) Then I will write a story about it and maybe it will even be made into a movie: "Driving Miss Tracy".

And that's my blog post for today....Maybe the movie should be called "Driving Miss Crazy"!

Yard Sale

Our breakfast buddies and a couple of their daughters had a bunch of yard sale items, and what better place than our house to have a sale?!

 

We started setting up shortly after 7:00 this morning and "closed" for the day around 3:30ish. We will "open" again tomorrow around 8:00 in the morning for day two. (There will be no day three!)

 

The sale items are covered with tarps in our driveway, so I suppose someone could do some midnight requisitioning. But I'm not too worried.... The driveway is right below my bedroom window, so I would probably hear them.... And then I would go outside and help them pack the stuff in their car!

 

Pastor Dave's and Laura's two young daughters had a lemonade and popcorn stand at our sale today. Their cuteness factor alone would have given them great business success! But the lemonade and popcorn were quite tasty. Yum.

 

Lew and I had a few items in the sale today. But I spent all of our profits buying stuff from our friends!

Gasoline Rewards: ?

I received an e-mail earlier today regarding my gasoline rewards card. (I will omit specifying which chain of stations the card is associated with.)

Here's what the e-mail enthusiastically shared with me:

• Gallons Needed to Earn Next Reward:  23 gallons
• Most Recent Rewards Redemption:  You saved $0.87
• Rewards Lifetime Savings (since 12/17/2012):  You've saved $1.72

Wow!  I have saved a whole $1.72 at the pump in almost two and a half years!  Now that is indeed something to celebrate.

To do:  Save time.  Stop "swiping" my gasoline rewards card.