One Size Fits All

I am a member of the philly car share service because there are times when I do need a car. In 2007 I drove once. That is I borrowed a car from the car share service and drove it for a few hours on one hot day in 2007. In 2006 I think I drove twice - once to make an impulse purchase of an air conditioner in the middle of August and once to move. The service offers pick-up trucks and I like driving them more than I like dealing with U-haul’s trucks. My plan with the Philly car share is the basic plan. That is I only pay when I use the car. So in 2007 I paid less than $40. It includes insurance and gas so its a fantastic option for me. The plan includes no recurring fees.

Flex car became a new car sharing option in the city either in 2007 or 2006. I immediately signed up because I like having choices. But for a long while flex car didn’t have pods where I wanted them to be. I am lazy so if a pod isn’t within 10 blocks of me, I don’t bother with the service.

Recently Zip Car swallowed/merged with flex car. And Zip car has been bugging me via email and mail to sign up. Since I am a procrastinator I didn’t bother doing anything about it. I also didn’t like the annual fee and sign up fee that was required to sign up. I don’t like recurring financial committments . 

Finally I got fed up and emailed zip car asking them to waive all fees since I barely drive. I asked that if they were not willing to waive the fees I wanted to be taken off their mailing list and my info not sold to other organizations. I got a response pretty quickly stating that the fees couldn’t be waived and that my info would not be sold and that I would be taken off the mailing list. So that was that.

Yesterday I received a voicemail from someone in the corporate office stating that, yes! The fees could be waived because I used to be a flexcar member. In other words the rules could actually be broken. Shocking!

This is actually good for because L.A. has zip car pods. Philly car share is still a cheaper option in Philly however, but for any car needs I might have in L.A., I will be using Zip Car. Unless another car sharing option establishes itself.

Today I made yogurt for the first time this year (the temperature was finally warm enough). I bought a small container of plain yogurt yesterday (for the culture) which did come in plastic.

I also made chocolate pudding from Vegan with a Vengence. I topped it with coconut flakes. So delicious.

And I baked bread using whole wheat flour from King Arthur and topped it with sesame seeds.  

I also made paneer…but since it was years (10 years?) since I last made it, I wound up with very little paneer cheese because I had forgotten the proportions. But I’m out of milk…so I am going to have to make more next week.

Went out for a lovely bike ride. There were few people out early on a Saturday morning, so the ride was perfect.

Degreased and greased my bike chains using a cloth napkin instead of old method of using paper towels. Now I’m soaking the grease filled cloth in an old pot of water and borax solution.

Currently in the process of cleaning out my harddrive clutter. I think I take too many pictures.

People on craigslist are flaky. I think I might just give all our furniture away by putting it out on the sidewalk. 

I meditated for an hour yesterday at a zen center. Its the first time I’ve meditated for more than 30 minutes. And the strange thing is….it didn’t feel that long.

I was worried that my legs would fall asleep or I would fall asleep or I’d burp or something. Nothing happened, although I was able to squash a burp before it made its appearance.

Overall, it was a very pleasant experience. In fact I was completely alert the entire time.

The room I was in was actually very quiet and I decided to focus on the noises instead of focusing on my breath. After a while I became aware of the din that had passed for "quiet" a few minutes ago. There were all these birds chirping away (I guess its mating season) and I felt like I was in some tropical forest. It was very pleasant to listen to. I couldn’t hear any automobiles but I could hear various machinery like the heater go on and off.

I tried to do a metta meditation, but didn’t have it in me to do it.

And it was so much more pleasant to come out of the meditation session via a buddhist bell then a noisy kitchen timer.

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:

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.

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.

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.

Read the post after lunch. (more…)

Its in the mid 30s this afternoon. I am sitting in my warm sheep skin slippers with my hot water bottle on my lap knitting my second pair of socks for my husband. The pattern is interesting enough that it isn’t boring me, and it looks really nice. I’m really enjoying the fact that I can just knit without having to worry about homework or papers or any other nonsense regarding school.

After hearing many good things, I decided to buy one pair of Smart Wool socks for my husband and myself. There are claims that they can last for almost a decade and I want to see if that is true. SmartWool also claims that 10% of every website order goes toward some organization that “promote environmental stewardship, healthy lifestyle choices for youth, and encourage responsible outdoor activity participation.” I got the pair of socks that was labeled as a heavy duty outdoor socks. I want to try wearing it indoors primarily as we plan on keeping the thermostat low or off.

I also purchased a pair of slippers from North Star Trading Co that I’ve previously mentioned. I think it will be really neat if we go the entire winter without turning on the thermostat. However, I should probably think of my compost worms, they may not like the extreme cold weather.

*warning* negative post ahead
(more…)

This college thing is getting worse and worse. And I only have another 60 days to go. I don’t know how I’m going to finish especially since every day I feel like quitting with even more intensity than I felt the previous day.

My solution: I’m going to aim low. As in C grades in all courses.

Today I envy everyone that went to technical school, skipped all college after high school and those that went to community college for 2 years.

Home made pizza with home made sauce (store bought cheese) and home made sangria.

I purchased a clothing item from LL Bean this morning. Before I thought to check to see where the clothing item was manufactured. I had ordered a Polo shirt. I then contacted LL Bean asking:

Additionally, I would like to know which items that you sell are made/produced/handled outside the United States (excluding the U.S. islands). How will I be able to tell that by viewing your website?

They responded:

The Double L Polo is manufactured in Thailand and the fabric is from China. Unfortunately, you are not able to find the country of origin on our website at this time. You are however, welcome to call customer service at 800 -341 -4341 and we will be happy provide that information for you.

I bought a compost bin and some red worms. In an attempt to reduce my garbage output, which often is organic matter I thought this would be a worthy purchase.

The delay in this purchase was mainly a lack of education. I thought composting would smell, and since I have a tendency to live in places with little or no access to outdoor space I was afraid that my residence would become unappealing to potential visitors. But now I don’t really care about potential visitors’ opinions and I want to reduce my garbage output (partly due to my participation in the Riot for Austerity 90% Emissions Reduction Project). I read a bunch of articles prior to my purchase, and here they are for your perusal:

I purchased the worms and bin from Clean Air Gardening. They have some informative videos that appear with some of their composting bins.

Article from NPR on worm composting. 

How to make compost, a composting guide. 

Philly info on composting (no classes available so far in the month of June).

City Farmer’s Step-By-Step Photo Guide to Worm Composting.

I sincerely hope that I don’t wind up with more categories than I use. But I do want to *try* to blog more often, if not daily.

Today’s most amazing link 

I changed the color scheme of my browser to not follow the default color specified by the author of the webpage. So instead of white backgrounds with black font, I have black background with white font. I read somewhere that this saved electricity or something. Not sure if that is true, but I do like the new color scheme. Feels more pleasing to my eyes. If I figure out how to take a screenshot I will.