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This weekend, I completed my own tax returns, as well as the return for a neighbor whose returns I have been doing for over a decade.  The neighbor's return (which is super-easy) I did yesterday, and they fed me dinner on Friday night too when I went to pick up their tax documents.  I also got to see the men's final in ice skating and Ilia Malanin's heartbreaking long program while I was visiting.
I drafted my own return yesterday and reviewed it and submitted it today. ...
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I had my tree guy over the other day to ask him to prune some rather large limbs of my enormous silver maple because they are growing right into an equally large hemlock about 25 feet away. So much so that you can see how the crown of the hemlock has begun growing tilted to get away from the encroaching maple branches, which are stealing the light.
Since they are both native trees, I want to keep them both. It will cost me $900 to have the pruning done, and believe me, there are...
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So I finally got a humidifier, and have been running for a few days.
While I normally would loathe making such a purchase, after having constant bouts of itchy skin and static electric shocks, including one that partially zapped out my headset(!), I decided that enough was enough.
First, the machine has noticeably improved my room, bring up the humidity from 20% to 35% and more.  More importantly, I am no longer experiencing itchy skin and static electricity.  That...
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My HOA is now requiring that I replace my roof—when it rains, it really pours.
So I made a big decision: I went ahead and paid off my student loan. It’s gone. I pulled the trigger and used money from my savings.
I hated seeing my savings drop, but I did it because my biggest fear has been getting let go and having that balance climb again. I know it’ll take a few days to officially post, but still… I honestly don’t even know how to feel.
 
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I got a fog picture.  
The light is a street lamp.  It just looked cool in the fog but I was surprised you can't even see the street lamp (the rest of it) in the picture.   & then it just looked cool with the tree and the dirty car windshield.
It's been a weird couple of months of extreme fog.  Including a white knuckle drive home from San Francisco a few weekends back, with the thickest fog I've probably ever driven through.
In other news,...
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Since both my tax refunds arrived in my non-interest bearing checking account today, I decided to double my principal-only payment on the car loan to $500.
I came across an interesting different way to determine your spending in retirement if your goal is to die with zero (or as close to zero as possible). It's super simple. At the start of each year, you take your current portfolio balance and divide by your remaining life expectancy based on life expectancy tables. 
Say...
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I ended up doing some impromptu tax planning for 2026 after doing my net worth statement.
My goal is to stay in the 12% tax bracket this year, as I did last year, which means an income of $50,400 or less in 2026. In 2025, my AGI was about $71,000 but my total taxable income was about $46,500. That included a $10,000 Roth conversion I paid taxes on like it was "income," but which I really didn't get to enjoy as income.
So basically, I think I will skip doing any Roth conversions...
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We got the house we were hoping for, got the call a couple hours ago...still waiting for the contract to sign and where to pay the  bond/rent etc. They said we could move next week I said can we do it sooner so he is seeing if we can do it thursday instead...fingers crossed.
Now I get the fun of starting all the paperwork to move into that home and moving out of this one. I am yet to still see the house, so when we get keys will go take a look and then clean before we move...
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After reading PatientSaver's entry on them, I decided to get one as well, mostly because I am a bit concerned about my small room perhaps resulting in unhealthy levels of CO2 concentration, which as you know leads to dizziness, headaches, and the inability to focus.
Well, according to my new monitor, the CO2 levels seem very acceptable.  However, this is also most likely because I keep my room door open at all times.  It will not be the case come summer though, when...
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Things are really getting bad. I bought three apples for $8—ridiculous. I honestly don’t know how people are going to make it.
 
In other news, my $510 student loan payment hit, the balance is just over $8k. I also received a notification that I’ll be getting a bonus this week. I’m thankful, but also frustrated, because it’s all going towards my student loan. I’m anticipating a $1,200 payment this week. This will put me just under 7k. 
 
I'm...
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It's about 11 degrees now and falling. Will be -30 degrees with the wind overnight!
I spent a few hours beefing up my rather poor water pipe insulation in the basement. Some of it is quite close to the outer wall, and that's what I focused on. However, like Goldilocks, I discovered that 1" diameter foam insulation leaves a bit of a gap while 1/2" diameter foam insulation is very snug and hard to close completely. 
I ruefully thought oh, it figures, I didn't get the...
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So they are going to start advertising the house for sale on the 16th feb...they will have 2 showings on 21 & 23 feb and more the week after if they need it...that should give us 60 days before we have to move out.  I hate having opens and people walking through with our stuff in the house/shed...I know peole who walk through and take inventory and then they are robbed later. I know they take everyones namenes and phone numbers but I still don't like it...maybe we will...
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Temps wll be plummeting tomorrow afternoon with lows each night this weekend below zero, and high winds will make it even colder. I don't plan to go anywhere, but I did run out today to spend about $75 at Lowe's on water pipe insulation in the basement. Not the foam kind, but the better quality stuff; I don't know what it's made of. I also got a large roll of insulation tape for hard to get to spots.
When I got my new heat pump hot water heater in January I guess 2 years ago now,...
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When I got home yesterday and pulled the mail out of the box, there was an envelope from the Social Security Administration.
This was not a surprise, since I filed for Medicare Part A recently.  I just received my card last week.  I thought this was another communication related to that.
But when I opened the envelope, it was a notice related to "Potential Private Retirement Benefit Information" indicating a potential "deferred vested benefit" of over $16k from one...
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Unfortuantely that rodent saw his shadow so it's six more weeks of winter or six more weeks until spring...guess it's all how one looks at it. We still have snow on the ground and even though we finally have double digit temperatures, it seems to be windy and therefore still seems cold. But at least my face doesn't freeze when I venture outside to feed the birds.
I think the bad weather has taken a toll on the birds. I really think I saw a bird sitting on the feeder scolding me...
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I think I spent as much time troubleshooting rejected tax return filings as I did filling out the tax return.
After the first rejection, I rechecked all my numbers and thought perhaps it was a glitch in the system, so I resubmitted after finding nothing wrong. It was rejected again. Then I discovered the special table you refer to if you were born before 1961. I'd glossed over this before because I was on auto-pilot, I guess, and this is the first time I've been able to check...
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I received MM(22)'s college tax form and confirmed that they treated his summer income as a 'tuition reduction'.  Which is not doing us any favors.  Would have been tax-free to him if they just treated it like income.  It was technically wages, that I of course let him keep (and did not apply against his tuition).  
I thought this seemed to be the case when they paid him in one lump sum, the same way they refund financial aid.  On the plus side, MM...
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Well it's official we finally got notice of them selling the house they hav to do something with photos because I dont agree with having my stuff online but they have 2 weeks to sort it out before it goes online and they can organise open houses....I loathe them...but have no choice. 
So now we have more of a timeline so we have at least 60 days before we have to move...depending on who buys it...let the fun begin. We have started doing a lot around here, we took a load of...
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As everyone knows, there has been brutal weather across the country, and a lot of it was settled right here. I did not go out of the house much, since the wind chills were 20-30 below, and it went on like that for weeks. It does make for a low-spending month, however.
It didn't make any difference in auto insurance, though! That was $2022 (semi-annual payment). It just keeps climbing. Housing was $799. It will be higher next month, when the new assessment fees kick in. $50 more...
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My 2015 Toyota CRV is in the shop & I'm still waiting to hear whether they will repair it or total it out. Sigh. I really wasn't ready to purchase a new car. I was hoping to build back my cash savings for the next couple of years. Thankfully my insurance is paying me as I filed for a collision. I damaged the core. There  is a radiator leak and the condenser needs to be repaired. And due to it running hot I may have permanently killed the engine.
I don't know why there...
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