Rat thoughts

It seems like my life just swings wildly from good luck to bad and back.

Just weeks after getting panicky about the property taxes, and having that resolved, I got around to doing my income taxes. Thanks to the Earned Income Credit (which doesn't take self-employment into account), and the rather large amount of withholding by the company I now work for, I only owe about $400 in taxes for 2004, instead of the $2000 I was anticipating. I can pay that off with half of my next paycheck.

I just dread when Fortune's Wheel decides to spin back the other way.

Got up at 4:45 this morning, and zipped into work by 5:30 so I could upgrade the Master Builder server and clients. It's not even noon yet, and I've already been here for 6 hours. I'm dead tired, running on pure caffeine, but I get off work in just two more hours. Yay!

But I don't get to go home, no, that would make my life too easy. I need to go over to the county assessor's office to work on getting the tax stuff straightened out.

After speaking to the county assessor's office, they said they would send me the paperwork to file for an exemption to the tax increase, however, this will take up to 12 weeks to process, and the tax MUST be paid by the due date on the bill, regardless of whether an exemption is filed or approved. Fortunately only half of the bill is due at the end of February, however that's going to require more than one paycheck to cover. Looks like it's ramen and rice for the next month and a half. And after that, I have an approxametely $2000 income tax bill due April 15th. Hopefully the exemption will be approved, or else I'll have to fork over ANOTHER $1000 by the end of June.

If an when the exemption is approved, I'll be able to file for a refund. Naturally, I won't see a dime of interest on it.

Just when I think I've got it made, and life is going to be easier from now on, something steps in to screw with me.

Well, dealer's room has closed for the last time, and everything except my clothes and personal stuff are packed in the car.  I'll be staying at the hotel for the night, then drive back home tomorrow morning.

Sales were abysmal.   I had the absolute worst table location in the entire room, off in the back of the room, in the corner, in a little alleyway that most people skipped.   You know you have a bad table position when your candy bowl is virtually untouched after 3 days.  This was the worst con, saleswise, since Confurence 13.

I screwed up a bit in my bidding in the artshow.   I'd placed a rather large bid on a Kyoht painting, Prince Of The Green, which sent it to auction.   Since I was running the table alone, I knew I couldn't defend the piece in the auction, so I figured it was a loss (especially since several other people had mentioned they were interested in it as well), and placed bids on a couple other pieces.  Lo and behold, I check with the art show pickup after the auction, and I WON the piece!  I wasn't expecting it, and with the other expenses (like a table for next year), I managed to drive my checkbook balance down to $29.   Not a problem, I thought, I'll just log onto the bank web site and shuffle funds from my savings account into my checking account until next payday.   Wrong!   The transfer won't go into effect until the next business day, which won't be until Tuesday!   Thankfully, that will also mean FC can't cash the checks until then, but I'm still going to have to be very conservative in my driving tomorrow to save fuel.   I've got about $55 in cash, enough for a tank of gas and maybe something to eat.   (I'm actually being insanely fiscally conservative, I know I've got 2 large uncashed checks floating around that probably won't be cashed for a couple months, but I hate going below 0 on paper, even if the actual current balance is much higher)

My rice cooker got a major workout this weekend.   I brought 4 kinds of rice, jasmine, brown texmati, "Royal Blend" (white, brown, red, and wild rice), and a rice & bean mixture, along with 3 kinds of bullion cubes (chicken, beef, and vegetable).  Every morning I'd fill up the rice maker with 4 cups of dry jasmine rice, some bullion cubes and water, carry it down to the dealers room, and fire it up.   It would cook the rice right there, then keep it hot all day.  I provided rice to several hungry dealers who weren't able to get away from their tables.  In the evening, I'd bring the cooker back to my room and fix some fancy rice for dinner, along with some tea.  My total food bill for this con was about $15, and that was only because I bought fancy rice.

The absence of animale , both in person and online, has made me extremely depressed, so I've spent most of the non-dealers-room time in my hotel room, watching FCTV, the official convention television station broadcasting over the hotel's cable system.

I just noticed that I wasn't paid for Thanksgiving. They wouldn't bend the rules for holiday pay, even though they'd bent the rules for insurance and 401k (you're not supposed to get any benefits until you've worked for 3 months, but they started me with insurance and 401k immediately)

I could have used that extra bit of money. :-P

My new job provides me with a 401(k) plan. This is the first time I've ever had a job with a retirement plan. I've got to figure out how much money I want to part with each month, and how much I want to risk. The company provides matching up to 2% of my salary, so I figure I have to invest at least that much. But how much else am I willing to part with.

My grandfather was very smart, he had not just his and his wife's Social Security, but also his military and California employee retirement checks, almost $60,000 a year just sitting on his ass!

I would like to be able to retire in style like that and never have to worry about paying the bills. I never served in the military, and I'm not married (and gay marriage probably won't be allowed any time soon), so it'll be just SS and whatever I invest now. I'm 31 years old, almost half-way to retirement.

Anything I put into a 401(k) is tax-exempt, so I'm thinking of pumping a huge chunk (20-30%) into it. But how much risk am I willing to take....