Weekend Plans Post: Taxes, No Politics
Thanks to a crisis last week and a crisis this week, if I work tomorrow, I have to charge overtime to do so.
Management has not authorized me to charge for overtime.
So… four day weekend.
Which is good! Because this is one of the weekends that has a Dreaded Chore in it. There are the chores that you can kick down the road. Hey, wanna switch out the long sleeve shirts for the short sleeves? Nah… let’s do it next week. And if there’s an exceptionally warm day in the middle, hey. Roll up your sleeves. Taxes? Taxes are, like, this thing that hangs over your head like the sword of Damocles. If you kick that can down the road, you know it’s there. It looms.
Maribou and I did a thing in the early years of our marriage where we tried to calibrate our taxes so that we’d either have to pay ~$100 or we’d get back a check for ~$100. “You don’t want to loan out money without interest!”, we said to each other. Then… well, after a few years where we did pretty good, we had something or other happen and we had to pay $1000. We did our taxes in mid-March that year and holy cow we had to scramble and scrimp and dip into savings and it was SOOOO STRESSFUL.
Wait, you didn’t have $1000 in savings? No, we didn’t. I mean, jeez. It was the first few years of our marriage. We sure as heck do *NOW*, I tell you what. But that one year where we had to panic and tighten our belts and ask ourselves if we *REALLY* needed that can of Pringles when we were at the Safeway (as it turns out, we didn’t)… well, that made taxes something to dread. We tweaked our numbers some more because, hey, maybe it’s not so bad to get a somewhat larger check from the government and, heck, now we do our taxes in February so, knock on wood, we don’t have to panic over a tax bill at the last minute.
We can panic for two months instead of just one month. We’ve gotten all of the forms we need for this or that or the other thing and can sit down and ask ourselves “okay, how bad is it?”
And then sigh in relief, say “hey, it’s within ~$100 of $0!”, or have a conversation about how many cans of Pringles we need, really. (BUT IT’S A PANDEMIC!, I’m planning on saying.)
I’m also vaguely irritated because this is one of the things that is going to be the same whether we’re in a pandemic or not… and, of course, it’s one of the things that is pretty much a bummer.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Tax” by 401(K) 2013 and is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)
My docket is making antibodies!
Because of a weird convergence of events (people can sign up for vaccine “pods” anywhere in my state, so apparently people from Tulsa and other northern areas have been grabbing appointments down here, unusual winter weather north of it made travel impossible for them, and my uni president being on the ball, and me being lucky), I got my first dose of the Pfizer anti-COVID vaccine today.
I still can’t quite believe my good fortune. Apparently these are doses that would have been wasted because the out of towners couldn’t get in to town. But right in town, the roads are good, so….I was able to safely get to the public high school and do the thing. And they scheduled me for a second shot in early March. This is exciting because it means it’s that much more possible I could travel to see my mom (whom I have not seen in over a year) this May.
This also opens the door in a few weeks for me to begin feeling more comfortable going out (masked and distanced of course) to do “unnecessary” shopping, which I haven’t really done (other than once or twice) in almost a year.
I don’t know if stores are letting people try shoes on yet, but I really need to replace at least one pair of my work shoes.
Other than that, it’s supposed to be exceptionally cold and even snow on Sunday (we normally never get snow, at least not snow that sticks) so I will be staying home, getting caught up on grading, maybe doing a little relaxing.Report
Hurray! *FINALLY* some good news!
(And I’ve been buying my Doc Martens from online sources and, lemme tell ya, they remain awesome.)Report
Awesome news!Report
Let’s see, this weekend…. Oh, yeah, 4″-6″ of snow. We had flurries today and I already hear people screaming out their windows like Denethor at the siege of Gondor. Flee, Flee for your lives!Report
The nerding is back. We’re @ 85% to ding 20th level, having slain a half dozen young dragons, and old one, and rescuing a few ancients from torture. Soon we’ll be after the lich king of red wizards of Thay. Then we prevent Tiamat from coming to this plane, or kill her when she does. Fun stuff.
The not fun is packing. I’m moving soon. Ugh. Already need a drink.Report
I had sinusy issues this week and was medicating, so I’ll spend a chunk catching up on grading. So it goes. I’ll try to get in a game or two with the wife. I have a new game called Canvas where you construct “paintings” by layering clear cards in sleeves to create a layered image. The images aren’t really important; they clear cards have icon that earn you points depending on game goal cards.
Or maybe we’ll just play Wingspan.Report
I’m checking out Canvas now (I’d never heard of it).
Holy cow, that looks awesome.Report
Yeah, we haven’t played it yet, but the aesthetic is great, and I think it’s going to be a fun little game. We also play Project L, which is a simple polyomino game with great pieces.Report
Played it last night. It’s fun, and can be brutal if you choose a set of difficult goals.Report
A lot of randomness or is it more worker placement?Report
No workers–you just draw cards. It’s the difficulty of the goals and the randomness of the art cards. Each game uses four goal cards. For example, you may need to have four different symbols in your completed painting or have all the color swatches at the bottom filled. You try to create paintings to match those goals and earn ribbons, which earn you points at the end of the game.
For the first game, used the recommended goals, and then in the second game, my wife drew four random goals, which were harder. Combine this with the randomness of the art cards available and you get a harder game. But that’s part of the game: making a strategy to deal with the available cards and the goals.Report
I had some tax-related news of my own this week. I’ve received my first invoice for property taxes from the council.Report
Congratulations?Report
Yeah, that sounds about right. Thanks?Report
No meaningful projects this weekend, so I think orcs and undead are going to get most of my attention (although enemy robots and neighboring city-states shouldn’t feel too secure either).Report
Hiding out inside. Highs for today through Sunday are forecast as 8, 3, and 5. °F. We haven’t made it to the 8 this afternoon.Report
I did my taxes last weekend. As an aside, don’t ever fear contacting the IRS about tax woes. They’re hardly the boogiemen they’re made out to be. Most people don’t make enough for the taxman to ever worry about them. All they want you to do it pay your taxes, sooner or later.
I’ll be carrying on a Valentine’s day tradition in our household by making pink, heart shaped pancakes for breakfast Sunday. The first V-day without my wife for about 30 years. It’s definitely going to be odd.Report
That sounds really hard. I’m sorry that there are all of these little things that keep jumping up and poking you right in the wound.Report
That’s going to be life for awhile, and I’m as ready as I can be for it.Report
I, too, earned myself a four-day weekend, not due to a crisis but rather due to an opportunity to learn more about my new job. So yesterday after wasting a substantial chunk of time watching TV and playing video games, I cleaned out the old computer parts bins in preparation for a trip to the local electronics recycler. I knew I had some pretty old stuff in there, but holy cow there was a bag of SIMMs, a motherboard that actually used them, and a couple of old ISA-type video cards.
In the end, I’ve got a two empty bins (where once they were all overflowing) and another bin containing nothing but three video cards and a bunch of empty electrostatic bags.Report
Taxes: Done.
Now we don’t have to think about it for a year. (I rolled over a 401K that I had mostly ignored since changing jobs back in 2013 and, for a second, it looked like that got paid out to me instead me being sent a check that immediately got placed into the hands of the financial manager. My heart was in my throat for about 20 minutes there until we figured out that, no, that’s just sort of how they do it now.)Report
The fun part is that if you deposit the check in a bank, it’s entirely possible they’ll cash it and deposit it in your account even if it explicitly says Not Your Name on the front!Report
Direct Deposit. We look forward to getting an email that makes us panic for a second because it’s from the federal government.Report