Tax Refund: It's Fiscalicious

Because my original purpose with this blog was to write informative articles in an interesting way, and while my crazy ones about rumors and shrinkological disorders are probably more popular, I'm going to get serious for a second (sort of) and discuss money because it's tax refund time for people who have the pitter patter of little tax deductions running around their joint.

I have written many articles about finance and financial management. I have managed businesses' money and got paid to do it. The reason I know so much about financial management is because I suck at it. I do. I am the impulse shopper who makes Bipolar people look fiscally conservative during their highs. I have absolutely zero self control, and many moons ago, I was the shop-a-holic (like I couldn't leave a store without a bag in my hand, and it still feels odd to do it). The sad thing is, all the shit I buy, I don't even use it. I buy toys I don't play with, and then I wonder where my children get it from. Instead of researching the psychological BS like it's going out of style, what do I do? I research and study the hell out of financial management. Part of it is because it was my job for a very long time, in my defense. Basically, in a nutshell, I'm poor because I blow money on the White Sale because I just need to have more dirty laundry to do... I must have been dropped on my head as a baby I swear it sometimes.

So, back to financial management. This year, I'm vowing to take my tax refund and stick it all in savings. I really wanted to do things with it, like buy a new to me used minivan because mine is getting sad. I want a new sofa because the kids have gooed this one into something I won't sit on without putting a blanket on top of it. I'd like to move. I'd like to travel. I'd like to take a vacation without the kids. Fuck me I just spent the whole thing and now I'm in debt up to my eyeballs.

There's a basic law in economics. Something about wants always exceeding needs. Basically, you are always ALWAYS going to want shit. You will always be wishing, dreaming, hoping, praying for something. Unless you are a Taoist Master who is truly content with nothing (as that's part of the uncarved block philosophy), you are going to want shit. You will get that shit, and then you are going to want more shit.

Okay, so we have our future to look forward to. Wanting stuff. Meanwhile, most of us have a past that haunts us. Debt. Yes, I owe money to loan sharks, and of the worst kind, student loans. Those people are ruthless too. Tip to whom it may concern: If you owe a debt where they take it out of your tax refund, and you file married filing joint, you can keep the portion your spouse would get by filing an Injured Spouse Form, assuming your spouse doesn't have a debt taking their refund.

I have friends who firmly believe the best way to financial freedom is to pay off debts first and then save. They have it down to a science. They take their pay checks, take out whatever they need to live off of (regular bills, groceries, etc.) and then they take the rest (they actually live with less than they make, must be nice) and pay off debts starting with the ones with the highest interest rates.

I disagree with that concept just slightly. Yes smart. If you really do have a crap-ton of money coming in that will feed and roof your family and have a bunch left over, fabufuckinglous for you. But where people like me mess up, I generally consider savings, like most other people, as a luxury. It is a luxury to have money sitting aside for a rainy day. Right? WRONG. Really, savings is just as important as the rent. It should come before debts, like maybe not everything left over from a pay check, but putting something aside is important. Reason being? Because the rent is important. The electric bill. Groceries. Most of the time, your savings is going to cover a month's rent, or that surprise we just added 600 dollars to your electric bill out of the freaking blue and we are guessing it's your AC or hot water tank that did it to you this month. It will cover that flat tire, the oil changes if you are short that moment which will in turn save your engine from blowing...

Savings is definitely much more important than a new sofa or upgraded vehicle, no matter how much my shit is shit...

USAA has this awesome service to its members. They offer free financial advice. I love it. I talk to those people frequently. They are who told me the importance of saving and how spending is stealing from your future blah blah blah. Now USAA recommends, like 50 people at that place recommended this to me in the last 10 years, to have a savings of a thousand dollars for invariable expenses like property taxes, oil changes, vehicle maintenance. This is to handle expenses that don't occur every month. You constantly put back into it and maintain it. THEN they suggest an emergency savings that will cover 3 to 6 months of the income you are used to receiving in the case you can't work for a minute (like you get hurt or lose your job). Now of course, this is a paradigm, and to someone like me, it's never going to happen.

I can come up with 50 different savings accounts for things I want to save up for, like Christmas, vacation, vehicles, house, camper, a 44 magnum with an extra long barrel like Dirty Harry used... Then I'm back at square one. I just spent all my savings.

I think the main part of savings is turning your wants of things to buy into wants of things to invest. Instead of wanting a sofa, want stock. Instead of wanting a new car, want a retirement. They are all listed as assets on a balance sheet in accounting nerd world, but the difference is cash assets CAN make more money whereas non-cash assets generally depreciate (they become worth less money). Unless you are investing in a car that will be worth more money in 5 years than it is now (like a classic)...

In the past, when we were doing well before we drifted off up shit creek without paddles, I had most of my savings going into a ROTH IRA. The beautiful thing about that was the pot of gold end of rainbow awesome, it was like doubling in a year. I got a Scrooge boner looking at the statements. The other awesome things about it, I opted that as my kids' college savings until we needed it for rent and stuff. I guess if you pull out of it early for education, they don't penalize you with taxes. This way, if your kid gets a scholarship, grant, or decides not to go to college, you can still use it towards your retirement.

The other thing I did, I put a little into a money market account. It too made me some money on interest. But that is really dependent on the financial institution you go through unless you really want to get all economical Robert Deniro in the movie Casino about it. Me, I just told my bank, "Medium risk," and let them have at it. My bank did a decent job with it. They may or may not do so well next time.

But now, I think I do want to get Robert Deniro in the movie Casino about investing. Instead of looking for sales on new shoes I probably will only wear once in a year, I can look for sales of stocks I think might go up. Some of them are like a dollar a share. That's like going to the dollar store. It's about shifting perspective.

If you want to pay off debts while saving, I did this many years ago with my "Welcome to 18 here's 50 credit cards to "build" your credit by irresponsibly maxing these out so we can charge you fee after fee plus interest" debts. I found a CD (not Britney Spears, a Certificate of Deposit) that earned a higher interest than a loan. So I purchased CD, and then I borrowed against it using that money to pay off debts. Then I paid little by little on the loan, but I still earned more interest on the CD than I paid in the loan. I know what you are thinking, I'm freaking brilliant. Well, A, I didn't make a lot of money, and B, it was all God's idea. It just fell on my lap in a Fate like way. If you are thinking, "What? You lost me at Britney Spears..." Find the money financial nerd in your life, whether it's your mom or your husband, and tell them what I said here like it was your idea.

The other thing is, sort of non-related but related, indirectly related, my kids are spoiled. I've seen spoiled rich kids in their 30's. I don't like them. I don't want my kids turning into that. I need to remove a lot of the "luxuries" from this home. Not this house. This HOME. It is cluttering the HOME part of my family.

So, back to my original point, I'm taking my tax refund and saving it like a good grown up. I'm putting on my big girl britches and doing something smart. Discipline is really what it boils down to. Something I totally lack, like go down to my father's grave and ask him, and he will probably scream in a ghostly voice, "That girl lacks discipline and focus." But like my momma told me, "You are the most stubborn person I know. That can be a good thing if you are wiser about what you are stubborn about." So I'm vowing to be stubborn here about savings. I may end up buying a sofa though and then save the rest. It's a cheap sofa from Big Lots, so it's not like I'm totally blowing money. Right?

Rumor Has It...

I'm probably one of the very few people who really enjoy listening to rumors about myself. I really do, and the more negative it is, the funnier it is. I really find it amusing. Now in my Darth Vader voice, I do find the lack of creativity disturbing. While sleeping with the entire College I attended football team was pretty creative, as if that many men really want to sleep with me, I haven't seen that level of creativity since 1997.

Actually, instead, I've heard the stuff I list first here. Most of the time, the rumors aren't worded so nicely, but since I'm not a fan of racial slurs, I'll translate into non-asshole. 

Distinguishing fact from fiction...

Whore -- False
Slut, maybe.
Porn star... there you go.

Is a bad parent -- False
Neglects and Abuses her children -- VERY FUCKING FALSE
Sold her children to the Lollipop Guild for 2 Hershey Kisses... There you go.

Smokes crack -- False
Dyes her crack green for St. Paddy's Day, hmmm, that was actually someone else and trying to claim it would infringe on that girl's intellectual property.
Married into the Mexican Drug Cartel and is now the new Godfather... there you go.

Loves black people --- True
Will only sleep with black people, ummm I really don't care what color you are.
Is black and has applied 27 times to be Obama's "intern"... there you go.

Loves gay people --- True
Is gay, doubt it.
Slept with the entire college cheerleading squad taking away the virginity of 5 chipper blond girls and is the reason Ellen now likes women and inspired the song, "I kissed a girl and I liked it."... there you go.

Quick to fly off the handle -- True
Gets into a lot of bar fights, debatable.
Interned with the CIA as an assassin and retired to be a mercenary after taking out Jason Bourne... there you go.

Is crazy-- True.
Is psychotically dangerous, probably not.
Was kidnapped by science and became a subject for what was later known as Experiment 626 where brain surgery was involved and then was abducted by aliens and formed an emotional bond with the alien sociopath (Bob) completely responsible for 90% of our earthly conspiracy theories... there you go.

Is a broke ass bitch -- Depends on the day.
Never had a job and always depended on the system -- Sorry, very wrong. Actually I have a better resume than all the people who came up with this one, which is actually very sad on their part.
Used so much welfare that it knocked the American Economy into one of the biggest recessions ever and then got elected into Congress... there you go.

Don't forget to lie through your teeth and tell everyone I look fabulous.

BTW, these are all things I was thinking about telling people I did for a living at my High School reunion had we actually had one, except I was going to say that I interned with Bill Clinton and Monica was my scapegoat for that scenario had I gone with it, but I probably would have gone with the assassin one.

This year I resolve to make better resolutions...

Resolution. Say that enough times and it sounds like a cleaning product. Like "To remove the stain, just dip the shirt in a 40 proof resolution and let it sit for a year." Isn't that what we normally metaphorically do anyway? Like in my experience and observations, New Year's is a time where we get really shitty drunk, dream a wish list of what we'd like to do with our bad selves this year, and really do very little to achieve it. Some people might have a little guilt over it, but most people I don't think feel it, the guilt, for not following through... I don't.

Honestly think about most people's resolutions. Who the fuck wakes up thinking, "God, I really really SUPER BAD more than sex want to pay off my debts?" Most of the time, they just want financial stability and are trying to take the most responsible route thinking it will get them there. Who really wants to diet? "Oh, let me deprive myself of my most favorite foods because..." No wonder diets don't work. Nobody wants to do that. We just want to feel pretty. Or maybe boost confidence. Or maybe improve our health. Most people's resolutions suck. So do mine. Mine suck big hairy donkey balls. I don't get much accomplished with it, and what little I do is very slow moving, like I'm constantly living in the "instant replay" state.

DEFINING IT

I decided to look up resolution's definition (even though I really do know what it means), and I got this on the top of Google.

res·o·lu·tion  

/ˌrezəˈlo͞oSHən/

Noun A firm decision to do or not to do something. A formal expression of opinion or intention agreed on by a legislative body, committee, or other formal meeting, typically after taking...

Synonyms decision - determination - resolve - solution Basically, it's a DECISION And here I thought they were more like the objectives at the beginning chapter of a textbook Another definition of resolution (copied and pasted from about.com) is also "a measurement of the output quality of an image, usually in terms of samples, pixels, dots, or lines per inch.... High resolution would be an image intended for print, generally having 300 samples per inch or more. Low resolution refers to images only intended for screen display, generally having 100 pixels per inch or less." My guess is you go lower resolution for screen display because it's less memory and faster loading. Basically here it's a MEASUREMENT HOW WE DO So back to resolutions, usually I am the type to NOT make any on New Years. I seem to like to make mine every other month. Even worse, I drag the hubs into it most of the time. But I guess that's actually a good thing, talking about family goals as a family and working to achieve them as a family... I think doing them regularly through the year gives you a better chance of getting them done because you are constantly re-approaching the subject. Yeah some of my resolutions are selfish ones. Personal resolutions. I look in the mirror and think, "I'm getting too skinny, I need to gain 10 pounds," and then another time I'll look in the mirror and think I should lose 10 pounds (like now). Sometimes I say, "I want to read this book." That one I usually don't get to do. Others include, "I'm going to cuss less, clean more, be more positive, try new sexual things on the hubs..." Then there's the relationship ones. These ones are usually more a Honey Do Resolution List. For some strange reason when I think about the shit that needs to be done to improve my relationship, I can ONLY think of the things the hubs needs to do. Now to be fair, I do sometimes SOMETIMES ask him if there's anything he'd like me to work on. These usually aren't big deals to do, but a big deal to me that they aren't done, things like, "Listen to me when I talk to you, don't spend big purchases behind my back, don't lie to me..." His is usually the same thing for me, which he only had the balls to flat out say it once, "Stop being such a bitch." Okay, I can work on that, IF you give me what I want. Then there's the family ones. This is the bulk of our regular resolutions in my household. These are things like the children's health (things that aren't life threatening, and we want to make sure it never will be), their education outside of the school, cleaning the house, and the big one. THE BIG ONE. Money. Saving, Spending, WISHING... THE FLAWS TO MY MADNESS Okay, so while it's awesome I'm sitting here making resolutions every month to where all I have to be concerned about on the New Years is the drinking part, there are some flaws to this. My long term goals and the big picture often get overlooked. I know what I should be doing, but do I really ever think about where I want to be in 5 years? I have a hard time with this usually because in 5 years, I don't know what kind of person I'm going to be. It's hard to make decisions for your future self, especially when you are a very unpredictable person with an even more unpredictable life. Example, 4 years ago from this day, I had 2 kids and not 3. My husband had a good job, and then he got laid off and nothing after that was decent until they were able to hire him back. I was also thinking about leaving him, on a very serious level. In fact, 4 years ago to this time, my New Years Eve was spent as follows... My husband never cooks. His sister was staying long term with us. She's an evil bitch cunt whore. I was unaware of this at the time. They decide they wanted to attempt dinner. Fine. Please. With 2 kids who don't sleep and the sleep nazi husband (he literally would never let me sleep and actually believed when he was sleeping that I was too so then I must be sleeping too much to want to nap during the day too, even though that nap was my sleep FOR the 24 hour day), I needed a nap. I don't know what they did, but every pot and pan was dirty. They at some point used a blender without the lid, for what I'm not sure. What did they make? Chicken. Baked Chicken and a pasta salad. Now I had 12 drumsticks in the freezer. They decided to only make 6 of them. Six drumsticks to feed 3 adults and 2 children. I didn't get any chicken because the one piece they left for me, one of the kids wanted it. So I try the pasta salad. I got me a very small serving, like enough to fork out 5 bites. The kind of serving you would serve yourself at a dinner party of important people you really are trying to impress. It was actually delicious. I wanted a regular helping after that, and my husband says to me, "Um, I need that for work tomorrow." So I left the house pissed. Don't deny me food. I cooked for his ass giving him the big piece of meat for years. The ONE time he cooks, I'm not allowed any? And worse part was, NOTHING was open. I couldn't get a McDonalds cheeseburger or anything because New Year's Eve. So I drove about a half hour north on the interstate to my town, met my friend and got shitty drunk. I wanted to cheat on my husband that night, but I couldn't find a guy I could stomach taking home with me. So instead, I got really drunk and I didn't get home until like 8 or 9 AM because I had to sober up sleeping on my friend's sofa. I tried very hard to make it sound like I could have been cheating. He didn't seem to care. I also emphasized that I got drunk so fast because I was drinking on an EMPTY STOMACH. So yeah, I was thinking about leaving him. Over a lot of things but the food was the last straw. I actually started saving for it, and that's the money we lived off of when he got laid off. Then I was pregnant with the third kid, who I think God is her father and not my husband, like the Immaculate Conception of the Whore, but either way, that kind of made me stuck with him and he's actually improved since this to where I'm glad I did. Now 5 years ago, he had just separated from the military with no job (beginning of December 5 years ago). We did that on purpose because I was 9 months pregnant, 4.5 cm dilated, when he separated and we lost Tricare that day. They are not an insurance but a military entitlement, so they didn't have to cover the rest of that pregnancy. The only way we were going to do it was medical card, and being married, any job would have interfered with that. Of course, I had the baby and he was looking for work. It took about 2 months to find a job, and then a month later his unemployment from the military would have finally kicked in had he not had a new job by then. Bastards. Anyway, we were very broke. Plus the moving expenses of everything going wrong that could possibly go wrong and Christmas had us into the negative broke. Our resolutions during that time was simply to find a job and move to a nicer place. Financial Stability. I think that's something every person dreams of having. Like the difference between 5 years ago and now is a lifetime. How could I fucking possibly plan for 5 years from now? Would we be in a better position now had I thought about it 5 years ago? Probably not. Like what's the point? Well the point is some day I'd really like to own my own house I built on my property, some day, and maybe have some chickens and a horse, and maybe a goat, and I totally want to travel with the kids. That's NEVER going to happen unless I work 5 to 10 years (and then some) on achieving that, and a solid plan, very focused. Otherwise, it's just a dream I mention on a regular basis as something we need to focus on. My other flaw to my resolutions, I don't plan for the unknown enough. We keep a spare tire because we expect the flat. To an extent, all my plans always expect things to go wrong. BUT things always go wrong and to a level of extreme chaos. Crazy shit that nobody could see coming. Is it this shitty economy? Maybe. Or maybe it's the curse of Angelina from high school. Or my family curse when ancestors pissed off Ireland (I still need to research that) and fled to the states to save their life (according to rumors). Either way, I think a lot of times we resolve to follow through with a plan, a poorly laid out plan, and then we wonder why we didn't follow through, or things didn't work out the way we expected. At least I tend to do that. I need to think deeper about what I really want and to word my shit in a way to focus on what i really want. Then develop more than one plan to achieve it because I need more room for flexibility. A versatile resolution. A resolution is supposed to be a decision, usually something we resolve to do or not do. A decision to VERB. But, it's also a measurement in computer world. A measurement of output, the RESULTS. I think from now on, I'm going to focus on results. I make decisions daily, including decisions to do shit I don't want to do. I don't need to resolve to do that. I need to focus. So this year's New Year Resolution for me is simply to make better resolutions. Focus on what I really truly want as opposed to focusing on a plan I think will get me there. Then create not one plan to get me what I want, but like 3 of them, and take the worst plan and make that Plan A because Plan A never works. Then take the best one and make that Plan C because third time is a charm. Of course, don't get attached to the plan. Stay attached to the purpose.  I think the trick is to be honest with yourself. Are these things really what YOU want or what you think others want?  What exact RESULT do you really want, and are there other ways to get there? Better ways to get there? 1. Lose Weight  Find beauty in my own self and stop giving a fuck what other people think 2. Be a Better Wife  Build self-confidence 3. Clean my House More Change things around so I don't have to clean all the damn time 4. Spend more time with my children Spend more QUALITY time with my children 5. Create a Savings Have a financial back-up plan. 6. Pay off debts Reduce financial worries 7. What am I going to do? What do I really want? Now, what are some different ways to get that? So instead of saying, "Lose Weight," I would say, "Feel Beautiful." Losing weight would be Plan C to get there, and as I think of other plans, I probably would shift it to Plan A because that's probably the worst plan to get you what you really want, so stick that one in the one you intend to let fail. January 1, 2013 Resolutions the VERB: 1. Make better resolutions 2. Drink alcohol on New Year's Eve 3. Eat pork and cabbage on New Year's Day 4. Get laid somewhere through all that As far as my real resolutions, I'm still working on that list. Maybe this time it won't change month to month as life happens because I still will want it every month until it's crossed off the list. I bid you adieu with this New Year's Tip: Avoid New Year's hangover by not drinking so much New Years Eve; I'm kidding, I could barely type that with a straight face. Just take some Motrin at some point before you pass out (use the bottle's recommended dosage). Don't Drink and Drive. Now that's a DECISION that can save lives and prevent shit from happening.