One Size Fits All

This is the bread we’ve been making using a modified version of the no-knead recipe. We store it on the counter top in the kitchen and the bread last for more than a week without getting mouldy. 

WARNING: This is another boring tax post. This is not advice. The writing will probably get on every English language person’s nerves.

According to the IRS, I can itemize my deductions and deduct state and local income tax or state and local sales tax. Every year I’ve filed my taxes I’ve used the standard deduction because my itemized deductions were really small. Most people that itemize their deductions tend to own property (or a business) and owning property is touted as a reason to itemize (or maybe its the other way around) and get a lower taxable income.

After yesterday’s entry I was wondering if there was a way to deduct state and local taxes…because my take home pay is a bit low and I want to have just a little less worrying about money. I assumed that the standard deduction would be $10,700 (although it could be $10,900) for 2008 so my itemized deductions have to be more than that amount.

Here is what I worked with:

State tax per year at $36.28/pay		943.28
City tax per year at $52.72/pay		1370.72
401 (k) at $62.49/pay		1364.74
Max student loan int deduction		2500
My HSA deduction at $67.72/pay		$  1,760.72
Roth		$  3,200.00

The numbers are slighly off because I just took the numbers from my previous pay check and multiplied it by 26 (number of pay periods). If I add the deductions above I get a total of $11,139.46 which is more than the $10,700 so I could deduct this amount from my federal return. Will that difference of $439.46 be my refund? I don’t know. The Roth amount is from May onward, because the amounts through April will be for 2007 tax year. Additionally, the numbers will change when I and/or husband begin working in CA.

I won’t be deducting sales tax because we won’t be buying too much stuff this year that will have a sales tax. And I wonder how things are going to change with moving to a new state and city. Apparently Los Angeles has no wage tax, but CA does and it can go up to 9.3%. Hmm…I read that CA doesn’t get much Federal funding which could one reason their tax rates are so high. Or maybe its because there is a number of high income earners living in the state… I am speculating here. I did a very rough calculation and found that my take home pay in CA could be higher than my take home pay in PA by $68.54 per pay period (using the salary from Philadelphia region, not the L.A. one).

Anyway…the minimum payment for husband’s student loans is $231.06 (which will take 19+ years to pay off at that rate). If he can pay that amount every month (starting in April) this year, the interest paid will be $2,758.21. I am currently paying down my unsubsidized student loan. The subsidized student loan payments come due in June 2008, and ideally I’d like to pay off the unsubsidized portion before June. However I’m paying small amounts toward it, prioritizing saving (for move and emergency fund) for now. If we both pay into our Roth IRAs, we can get the $3,200 deduction (assuming it stays the same in 2008). So this could mean we might be able to get a higher deduction by itemize our deductions without owning any property or a business.

DISCLAIMER/PARANOID thoughts: Don’t take this advice as its not meant to be advice…its my general ramblings about my favorite topic in the world. 

I just read Publication 15 which is  the Employer’s Tax Guide. I was trying to figure how my employer determines how much tax to take out per pay check. Between the Federal Govt., the State Govt. and the City Govt., I give away $143.25 out in taxes every two weeks without fail. I used the withholding calculator last year, but I only made the adjustments to my husband’s paycheck. I increased the withholding allowances based on student loan payments and retirement contributions. The tax tables for 2008 have not been published, but according to the 2007 tables, my tax should be 4,111 at my salary of $32,605 (assuming no deductions). And this apparently puts me in a 25% tax bracket. But that would mean I am giving $158.11 per paycheck just to the federal govt. alone. So this table didn’t make any sense to me.

In Pub 15 on page 46, my tax should be $53 per pay check (as a married person with 2 withholding allowances listed on my W4). But I get $54.25 taken out of every paycheck (based on taxable income, i.e after retirement and health care deductions which are not taxed). If I have 6 withholding allowances, my tax would be $0 (my new raise goes into effect next month…so I’m still surving on my student pay. New raise is $39,086, which in L.A would translate into $40,752 as I will be on the same pay scale when I move). Should I go to payroll office and harass them? I’m sure they’re going to tell me something about how the thing is automated and that they can’t fix software bugs, etc, etc. But I want my $1.25 dammit! That is $32.5/year which would buy a nice case of beer (or new beer making ingredients) or a nice dinner for two.

I reduced my retirement contribution to 5% after husband became unemployed and I get 100% matching to my 5%. I decided to increase the percentage to 6% for the next pay, and will probably increase it again if I feel comfortable on the reduced pay. If I increase the retirement contribution to 7% my taxable income falls and my federal tax per check will be $51. Or maybe $52.25.

The other pre-tax withholding is for health “insurance”. This is a high deductible plan (HSA) I wrote about previously. The deductible is $1500 and every pay day I put in $67.72 into an account managed by aetna which I can use to pay for medical things up to the deductible (if I understand how this thing works). I don’t know if I’m comfortable with aetna managing my funds…I think I can do that myself. This $67.72 is for both me and my husband. Currently the balance is $125.20 ($0.20 was the interest I earned for the month of February) and we’re saving up for a vasectomy (I think I’ve convinced my husband to do it, but he may chicken out…). The company is also slow in posting my payments into the fund. So the balance is off. Also the company has a crappy, buggy website and is in cahoots with Chase….which to me means trouble because chase is always doing bad things to their customers.

BTW, husband recently got a PT job that is perfect for him. And I’ve been stressing him out to get another job to pay down his loans…because I am the wife who hates debt. So he is looking for another job (either PT or FT that fits in with our freakin’ ethical and moral values, because I’ve already brought down our collective karma not having the right living down pat)

Edit: PA and Philadelphia has a flat tax and no opportunity for exemptions. Tax rates are: 3.07% for state and 4.219% for city.

Kiplinger had a good article on moving away from the lawn aesthetic. I don’t want to think about the amount of water that is wasted, but:

American yards have a drinking problem. for decades, we’ve bought into the aesthetic of the perpetually green lawn — watered, fertilized and pest-free. And we’ve landscaped our yards with exotic plants that crave more water than the climate naturally supplies.

At 32 million acres, lawns are the largest irrigated crop in the U.S. We pamper them with one-third of all the residential water used daily (7 billion gallons); in some regions, it’s as much as 50% to 70%.

 

The article actually suggests rainwater harvesting! There was also a little sidebar stating that at least "36 states are anticipating water shortages within five years. Municipalities and utilities face a challenge: Either build expensive and often unpopular new infrastructure or motivate people to use less water." I wonder which option will be chosen initially. I’ve heard of Californian cities and towns successfully implementing water conservation projects…but will that work in these 36 states? Another alternative would be to steal like Georgia did when Georgia recently claimed a sliver of the Tennessee River. There is also the option of reusing bath/washer water to flush a toilet either by the use of a bucket or by buying a contraption.

I admit that I’ve been checking zillow.com and other sites to get a feel for what housing prices are like now that everything is apparently a mess (I don’t watch TV and I know no one in financial trouble, so this financial crunch news seems like a regular broadcast from Mars…). I check Los Angeles listings regularly, just in case I wind up liking the city and decide that I want to settle down there permanently. I learned that houses tend to stay longer on the market if they only have street parking in L.A. which means, the asking prices slowly goes down. Lack of parking is not going to be an issue with me and my public transit/bicycle using ways.

Anyway…I decided on a random year on when to buy property (either house or condo or land) and noted it on my ever growing goal list. Our most popular idea is to buy land and an RV and slowly build our house from scratch (assuming this is all a-okay with the various authorities). RV will be for housing purposes while we’re working on the land - to grow a small bit of food, although my husband wants to own a goat and chickens…something I am not so sure about. I have crazy ideas of building a cob house because this means that I could fashion my own furniture out of a hay-sand goop and thus have biodegradeable furniture I can then work on making earthen pots and just in general bring the entire third world over to America.

This means that I am going to start a currently non-existent fund to save money for a permanent living space.  

I just learned about the Choose to Save website. From their about page:

Financial security is one of the most important issues for most Americans. Whether it’s putting kids through college, saving for an emergency, buying a house, or saving for retirement - having enough money for life’s demands is among our biggest concerns. And yet, many Americans have not taken even the first steps toward a secure financial future.

The Emmy and Telly award-winning Choose to Save® national public education and outreach program is dedicated to raising awareness about the need to plan and save for long-term personal financial security.

As part of its mission, Choose to Save® develops user-friendly, multimedia materials to help individuals plan and save for their financial future, including:

• Public service announcements (PSAs) using humor, powerful images, and compelling information to encourage viewers (and listeners) to take charge of their financial future.


• ChoosetoSave.org- a Web site completely devoted to financial education. It includes free savings tools such as the Ballpark E$timate® retirement planning worksheet, over 100 online calculators, brochures, savings tips, links to related resources, and other tools to help individuals and their family manage their finances. Visitors can also view and listen to the PSAs from the Web site.


• A variety of free savings tools and brochures focused on topics such as Saving for Your Family’s Future, Just Starting Out, The Magic of Compounding, Maximizing Your Company Savings Plan, Why Open an IRA, It’s Never Too Late to Save, and much more.

 

They have videos and some sort of superhero of saving called…Savings Man (quicktime video where Savings Mans warns you about the Credit Card Guy Villan).

NOTE: This post is just an exercise that I’m doing for my own entertainment purposes. 

In one of my business classes I was required to do industry analysis. I found the exercise to be a pain in the ass because I don’t think an analysis can be done in less than one week while I have other competing priorities. But I guess it was an interesting thing to get introduced to. Well, the FDIC allows one to perform industry analysis on banks. I recently switched from my credit union to ING’s online checking account because of Regulation D among other reasons. I have a post sitting in draft that has me complaining about the regulation and my credit union, but the post isn’t quite readable yet. Anyway, I did a search on the summary of deposits for the Philadelphia region and ING came out on top which the most deposits and thus the larger market share at 20.76%. I found that somewhat surprising because every company I’ve worked with has had its deposits in Wachovia (market share of 9.4% in Philadelphia area) or PNC(3.66%), and I’ve job hopped many times in the last few years. My experience means nothing, but I was surprised. ING was listed as having only 1 office compared with Wachovia’s 207 and PNC’s 152 and I know ING has these cafes (internet and coffee access) , one of which is in center city, Philadelphia. This data was for the period ending June 2007, so with the recent problems in the financial markets, the numbers may have changed. 

The industry analysis can be done based on a peer group criteria and ING seems to stand out in some matters. They have way more securities than their peer group (63.34%:14.99%), comparable but slightly more residential loans than their peers 32.85% to 21.88% and I suppose this is their accounts receivable, which is why its in their asset section. They have more deposits than their peers at 75.71% to 64.53% and I suppose the deposits are a liability because they are due back to their customers. But is the 75.71% 100% of their deposits? I thought there were controls in place to prevent the old run-on-the-bank disaster. And ING has 75.71% of the deposits in interest bearing accounts and none in noninterest bearing accounts where the peer group has 43.88% in interest bearing and 9.13% in non interest bearing accounts.

I looked at the NCUA site to see if I could do a similar analysis on credit unions and found that I could. I can do a ratio analysis and compare with peer groups and what not. But I don’t know what to do with this information. My credit union has more charge-offs than its peers so that could mean even less attractive interest rates than they have now. I can see the the membership growth is declining and that my credit union has more delinquent loans than its peers…

Obviously I’d like my money to be safe in whatever depository institution I stick it in. And I suppose having these numbers will help potential investors evaluate the institution better and keep them in the good books of their oversight organizations (FDIC/NCUA). And its nice to have these numbers for me to look at…for entertainment purposes.

I was finally able to articulate my views on animals and turned it into a comment at Crunchy Chicken’s blog. I am putting it here to I remember how I feel about animal rights issues.

On a poll that Crunchy was running to figure out how her readers felt about animals and human consumption of those animals, I originally said:

I picked the last option: "People should be able to eat whatever they want regardless of how it was raised or dispatched (this includes hunting wild animals)".

I am mostly vegan (and eat meat when its offered) but I don’t care what people eat. I sort of actively dislike all animals - don’t like them, but don’t mind them either. I am upset about the latest downer cow incident…but am honestly not upset enough to do anything about it. Animal issues just don’t rank very high for me. I personally will avoid causing them harm (except for mice) but don’t think I should decide how people ought to behave toward them.

My views are clear to me but am not sure I articulated them well here.

 A few people agreed with me on not being particularly attached to animals, but one person did get a bit upset:

I cannot believe there are people like Beany who say that they actively dislike animals. It makes me feel sick, and understand why our country is in the state that it is in. Not to pick on just one person, the same feelings were hinted at by many. But if animals rights are so low on the priority list, what’s to say that soon children won’t fall off there, or the elderly. For me, there is no real division between people and animals when it comes to ethics. Suffering is just not allowable.

Then again, I can see by the health statistics how Americans are treating themselves, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised how they would treat something they actively dislike. Yuk.

Greenpa speculated that I was afraid of animals:

 

I think; I’m guessing- that in most cases the reality is they are AFRAID of animals. For many reasons, but 98% of the time this includes growing up in a city, with very little happy animal contact.

So I decided to articulate what I was having trouble articulating to myself:

 

To explain why I dislike (do I explain opinions? Seems a bit silly) animals…I have grown up around them (domesticated cats, dogs, chickens, goats, cows, elephants)…I just don’t like them…the best I can explain this dislike is that some people love cilantro (me), and some people absolutely hate it (people I know).
I feel alot of empathy toward animals and their suffering and it really bugs me…but animals rights don’t rank very high up as I have to prioritize. My big concern is overpopulation and oil consumption. I do take care of feral and stray cats that doesn’t mean I’m going to cuddle up with one. Also can I get points for being a vegan? How many vegans dislike animals?

Sorry greenpa…my feelings have nothing to do with fear actually. Also I think that in an urban environment its somewhat impractical to own cats or dogs because of the lack of space and problems involved with having one(using plastic for scooping poop for example). I think its cruel that people own large dogs in the city.

——

O also to be clear. I dislike kids and old people. I’m child free by choice and avoid contact with anyone over 40 (with some rare exceptions). Actually on some days I dislike every one and every thing.

But…I read blogs by parents that post baby pictures and watch the latest exploits by junior on youtube. I like to enjoy the good parts of parenthood without actually being one. I love baby sitting toddlers. And there are many people over 40 whose share their thoughts and opinions that I really value.

I guess I am saying that I am a very complex individual. And I’m very cheeky

I also had something mean in there (not directed at anyone on the comment thread…I don’t think), but removed it. I am trying to be a nice person so it wasn’t very nice to type that in.

 

And yes there are wonderful dog parks, and pets provide much companionship, etc, etc…but that is not my view.  

I broke my husband’s USB key last week in a manner that will just take too many words to describe (I insist on using the computer case/chassis as a foot rest and my foot was close to the usb slot). Since I felt bad I offered to buy him a replacement so off we went to Staples.

While at staples, I realized that I had a USB key that I had purchased a year back to backup my schoolwork. I offered to give it to him as I don’t use USB keys to back up stuff (I back my data up on remote servers). So I was able to avoid buying an item and most importantly didn’t spend money.

When I become a Buddha I will be known as Shakyamoney seeing how much I obsess over money.

I think eating locally is starting to get easier despite the fact that we’re still buying at least 2 organic tomatoes (grown in mexico) at $4.99/lb every time we buy groceries. I will not be doing this anymore…because Mexico is far away and thus not local. I did go without tomatoes for about 2 months…but I still can’t completely stop eating it. There are too many dishes I eat that call for tomatoes and I just don’t like squash and turnips and parsnips and an entire assortment of veggies that are available in the winter season. Obviously if I had canned the summer produce I wouldn’t have this problem. But…I have many excuses for not canning including: school was driving me crazy and I was terrified of this toxin called botulinum toxin.

Except for oil, flour, rice, chocolate, coffee and some spices we’ve been eating local produce for nearly all our meals. I did experiment with local spelt flour and found it to be a good replacement for regular midwestern flour from King Arthur, but spelt flour is a bit too expensive for our budget right now.

One of the reasons I’m really looking forward to moving to Southern California is because of the food. There is a possibility that I can eat locally grown citrus fruits and bananas and avocados and have fresh cilantro all year round. Right now, I could just go out and eat the non local items like I am with tomatoes, but I can’t seem to do it. At some point last year I read articles and watched documentaries on the plight of banana workers. Google will yield many results. It really depressed me and I asked my husband if we could stop buying bananas. He had already given up avocados…so this was yet another item I was asking to give up. After he watched a documentary or two with me (Life and Debt depicts this issue quite well) he agreed. An added bonus to not eating bananas would be the elimination of fruit flies attracted to banana peals in our composter.

I am trying out all these challenges to test myself and for a bit of excitement…but now I have to grapple with all these moral issues to boot. I find it difficult to eat a freakin’ banana now because I have the image of banana workers getting beaten by cops for asking for higher wages.  

I’m looking forward to berry season. I’m sick of eating apples. 

An excerpt:

One frigid March morning last year, federal agents raided a factory in this old whaling town, arresting hundreds of illegal immigrants as they sewed vests and backpacks for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Most were shackled and sent to a detention center in Texas, where they faced rapid deportation unless they could post thousands of dollars in bail — money they didn’t have — to buy time to mount a defense.

Then, a mystery benefactor appeared. The anonymous donor ponied up more than $200,000 to spring 40 people from detention.

The payments, which until now haven’t become public despite extensive news coverage of the raid itself, came from Bob Hildreth, a Boston financier who made his millions trading Latin American debt. He was "infuriated" at the televised images of workers being shipped to Texas, he says. Helping them make bail is "payback."

It appears that the CS rep I spoke to about my comcast bill did give me a discount! My bill arrived today and it was $32.29. Previous bill was $42.95. That an extra $10/month I didn’t have before.

I will  mail my thank you letter tomorrow.

In 2003 I got really depressed for a variety of reasons. The main culprit was my news obsession. People were dying, people were mean, people were crazy, the sky was falling and I just couldn’t handle it all. I was whining about my low spirits on an online forum and a few people suggested cutting out all media from my life, at least temporarily. I made all sorts of excuses in response to that suggestion: I need to read news to be a better student, the world will stop spinning if I don’t read the news, etc. But eventually I did cut out all media. The trigger was seeing the Hussein sons’ dead bodies splashed on every single media outlet. I quit reading the WSJ, the NYT, WAPO, slashdot, plastic.com, slate, the BBC and a host of other sites. My husband and I have never owned a television so television watching was never an issue.

But the world continued to spin and I filled the void by reading alot of books. I read fiction, books on various historical events, books on finance and a bunch of other topics. And I became my normal grouchy non-depressed self again. All was well. Reading history books and watching historical documentaries gave me a good perspective in reality, mainly: how to not get caught up in any sort of emotional chain reaction.

Not reading and watching the news (newspapers, television programs) hasn’t exactly kept me out of touch with what’s going on….but it makes me aware of how so much of what happens is cyclical. I’ve limited my information sources to books and blogs (most of which are listed on my own).

Yesterday my husband announced that he was going on a media fast as well. He didn’t want to hear any sort of political news. His reasoning was because the news tends to anger him, and since we’re both hot heads this would mean we have less things to get angry about.

I’ve been a bit more vigilant on how much information I am exposed to on a daily basis…that was part of the reason why I wanted to trim the fat.  I’ve been reducing my time spent online and consolidating my online tasks more. I think I am in a better mood because of it.

Inspired by Xin Lu, here are 5 reasons I like public transit, and 5 reasons I dislike public transit:

5 reasons I like public transit
1. I can catch up on sleep
2. I can do a lot of reading
3. Its free (100% paid for by employer)
4. Safer
5. Entertainment (I think Philadelphia is the only city that has such a high ratio of loonies to sane people. I count myself as a sane person)

5 reasons I dislike public transit
1. No control on time it take to get somewhere
2. Motion sickness
3. People who take up more than their allotted space (determined by me) of one seat with their ass.
4. Smell of pee
5. The fact that there is no discrimination against loud people