The Shopping Nazi

Once again, how much is enough? How much square footage does a person REALLY need?  How many rooms in a house are full of “stuff?”

It is a universal principle that if you are a good steward to what you have you will gain more. Those who are bad stewards will lose what they have. You see these people who never seem to have anything nice. They don’t take care of what they have, or they are replace what was stolen from them.

I hang my head low in shame over the amount of stuff I have had stolen or lost over the years. I must admit it was through carelessness on my part. I either did not lock locks or I left valuables in open tempting people to come by and steal from me. Read the rest of this entry »

There has been years where our whole tax refund was used as a bail out. We were so far behind in bills that we needed that tax refund to get our heads above water. Times were hard.

This year we are floating on top of the water. We can take the income tax refund money to treat ourselves. Well, not all of it. We have allocated the refund money into three areas.

1. Treat Ourself
2. Donate
3. Save

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Remember the old saying, about death and taxes. This is the time of the year where some people talk like it is a near death experience. Maybe that is why some people wait until the very last minute and mail out their income tax filing just before midnight on April 15th.

Over the years I have struggled with doing my yearly obligation. I have set down with a W2 form, a couple of 1099’s, a calculator, and a pile of tax forms.  One year, I took a box full of receipts and invoices into my accountant and set it on his desk. A week later I went back with my checkbook in hand. There I wrote him a heft check, along with a small one to the federal government and a modest one to the state government.

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I am sure all of us has seen the commercial from FreeCreditReport.com. I am sure we have laughed at this poor guy with a friends driving down the road. Because of a bad credit score stuck with broken down sub compact. Then two beautiful ladies in a convertible drive beside him and laughing.

The truth is a low credit score can cost you a lot of money. Even keeping track of you credit score can cost you money.

Federal law requires the three major credit reporting agencies, Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, to provide consumers with one free copy of their credit report once every 12 months from a centralized source.

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