The Periphery of the Mind

The other day the IRS sent us a nastygram saying we owed them $900 or $4000 for unpaid back taxes from 2007. It wasn't very clear. While I spent 20 truly awful minutes waiting for someone to pick up the phone, Maryanne was able to tear the entire house apart and find our 2007 tax returns (she has a skill at saving and finding important things, whereas I'd probably just throw them away). After talking with the woman and looking at the return it became clear: her previous employer had sent the IRS paperwork for the month or so she worked and then sent in a second W-2 for all the money she made in 2006. So now she's trying to get that sorted out. According to the IRS we need him to give us a signed document on company letterhead and a corrected W-2. Hopefully he's not trying to use us as some sort of temporary tax shelter, but who knows.

Better news on the canary front. Juliet is sitting on a total of six eggs now! Seems the first three she laid were followed by another three later, including two in one day. And she's very intent on her nesting. Esmerelda seems to be doing fine, and we're hoping to move her and Casanova soon and let them start breeding.

Labels: birds, Financial

A few weeks back I finally convinced the Professor to let me pull out 10% of my paycheck. I tried selling her on the idea of looking at it as a tithe: God gives me money to help the needy, and some day I'll be needy, so by putting part of the money God gave me to our future needs I'm putting the money to helping the needy as God intended. While she didn't go for that, she couldn't deny that the University's matching my 10% with another 10% was the best deal on retirement we'd likely get.

So, being young and patient, I put all the money into stocks. The Dow takes a hit, my stocks drop in value. But I keep buying them and hoping they keep dropping. Not to Depression era plummets, since I figure such a move might cost us our house and maybe our jobs, but low enough that I can keep buying more and more. See, I don't need them now, and hopefully in another 30 years or so they'll have risen and fallen and risen again. Just in time for my retirement.

Labels: Financial