08:21 – It was 67.2F (19.5C) when I took Colin out at 0710, hazy but bright.
The installers are supposed to show up later this morning to get our downstairs floor installed. They’re putting in LVT, Luxury Vinyl Tile, that looks just like hardwood but has the immense virtue of being entirely waterproof. That’s the last thing remaining downstairs, other than getting the ceiling light fixtures replaced and everything cleaned, dusted, and moved back into place. The work crew may also install the ceramic tile in the master bathroom upstairs, although that’s a much lower priority.
Followup email yesterday from Kathy.
She forgot to mention that, on their way to Sam’s Club Saturday, they decided to take a detour and stop at the Walmart Supercenter in Norton, Virginia, where they routinely shop once a month or so. It’s about 30 miles and 45 minutes from where they live. It doesn’t stock the bulk stuff they wanted–large bags of flour, sugar, etc.–whence the Sam’s Club run.
But it does stock some stuff they wanted to try before they bought it in quantity, including the Great Value instant dry milk, Nestle Nido. and Keystone meats. The latter was actually cheaper there, at $5.58/can versus $6.28/can on-line. The trouble was, the store didn’t carry all of the meats Keystone offers, and they had only a few cans in stock of the ones they did carry. So they bought all of the Keystone Meats 28-ounce cans that were on the shelf, and test containers of the milks.
The Walmart Great Value instant dry milk costs about $3.62/pound, versus a buck or so less for the LDS dry milk, but Kathy was concerned about what I (and Angela Paskett) said about it not being very good to drink. They picked up a can of Nestle Nido to test as well. It runs about $4.37/pound, which isn’t a huge difference, but Kathy is mainly concerned about shelf life, since they don’t have much freezer space. Kathy was pleased that both milks are already packaged for LTS. The Nido comes in a can, albeit a foil-layered cardboard one–and the Great Value in a foil pouch inside the cardboard box. The Nido had a best-by date 14 months out, and the GV instant dry milk about 17 months. She figures both will remain usable for far longer, even just sitting on the pantry shelf.
They made up a quart/liter of each Saturday evening, and stuck it in the refrigerator. They taste-tested it Sunday morning with breakfast. She and Mike agreed that the GV instant dry milk wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great, either. It reminded them of regular skim milk, which neither of them particularly cares for. The Nido was better, much richer than the 2% fresh milk they normally drink, and much better than the non-fat dry milk. They plan to give the LDS dry milk a pass and order an as-yet undetermined mix of the GV instant dry milk and the Nestle Nido dry whole milk.
Kathy says that if she wasn’t concerned the Nido would have a shorter shelf-life than the non-fat dry milk, she’d order all Nido. Mixed according to directions, the Nido yields 53 cups (3.3125 gallons) per can. Presumably, since it’s labeled as “whole milk”, that provides a butterfat content up around 5% or more. She says they’d probably be happy using a can to make up twice the nominal amount, which would make the Nido actually cheaper than the GV instant non-fat dry milk and for that matter little more per gallon than she pays for 2% milk. I suggested that since the Nido costs about the same per gallon as the 2% fresh milk they usually drink, she should just go ahead and stock up on it and start using it exclusively, assuming they like the diluted version. She knows the Nido will last 18 months and probably longer even at room temperature. Since they’re not going to be storing several years’ worth of dry milk, why not just buy a bunch and rotate it? I also suggested that she buy at least three small cans of Nido, stick them on the pantry shelf, and open one after 12 months, another at 18 months, and the third at two years. That way, she can get a direct comparison of older versus fresh Nido and determine real-world shelf-life for herself.
And–I was waiting for this to happen–Kathy wants me to put her in contact with Jen, Brittany, and the rest of the Prepper Girls. They’re going to take over the world, I tell you.
Important thing with the Nido is to get the milk and not the flavored drink for babies.
Nido Kinder +1 , por bebe’s is in most of the stores around here. The straight up Nido milk is only in a couple.
It wouldn’t hurt, mind you, but the flavor is not the same.
BTW, my ‘intermediate use’ shelf has UHT whole milk in liter boxes, and a couple cases of chocolate and skim single serving ‘juice boxes’. It’s a great “Oh sh!t, we’re out of milk for cereal” substitute, works in the kids lunches, and is readily available. (conserves stored water too.) The UHT is NOT good for extended periods past it’s “Best By” date. It gets thick and chunky.
My grocer has UHT whole milk in the baking aisle.
nick
“Nido Fortificado, por bebe’s is in most of the stores around here. The straight up Nido milk is only in a couple.”
The Fortificado IS the straight whole milk powder. The “Fortificado” part refers to it being fortified with vitamins. I think what you’re thinking of is Nestle Nido Kinder, which is intended for children 1+ years old.
Or maybe I’m confused. At any rate, Fortificado is the only one I’ve ever bought.
OH MY, you are absolutely correct. it’s the Kinder +1 that is the kids drink.
EDITED the original….
It’s a shame that the Prepper Girls aren’t trying to recruit new members from the pool of wives of readers of this site.
“…the pool of wives of readers of this site.”
I get the impression that the pool of wives I’ve heard about or know personally are kinda stuck in Normalcy Bias stages and don’t really believe that anything bad is gonna happen, and if it does happen, the government will deal with it and all will be well.
Mine at least is aware that winter power outages can be a problem if they last more than a couple of days, and that we do, in fact, have local gremlins busting into houses and cars and stealing chit, and that we also have narcotics and DUI issues in this AO constantly. My SILs down in MA aren’t even that cognizant or caring, with ten times the population.
When my daughter was in first grade I drove her to school every morning. Usually she had breakfast in the car, always including a cup of whole milk.
If we didn’t have milk in the house, it was a good day because I’d stop at the convenience store on the way to school and get a quart of chocolate milk and let her drink as much as she wanted.
But it does stock some stuff they wanted to try before they bought it in quantity, including the Great Value instant dry milk, Nestle Nido. and Keystone meats. The latter was actually cheaper there, at $5.58/can versus $6.28/can on-line. The trouble was, the store didn’t carry all of the meats Keystone offers, and they had only a few cans in stock of the ones they did carry. So they bought all of the Keystone Meats 28-ounce cans that were on the shelf, and test containers of the milks.
My Super Walmart does not carry any of the Keystone meats. I looked Sunday. And when I order them from http://www.walmart.com, they hit each can randomly with a ball hammer or a 2 lb hammer.
“Hard Drive Cost Per Gigabyte”
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-cost-per-gigabyte/
“For hard drive prices, the race to zero is over: nobody won. For the past 35+ years or so, hard drives prices have dropped, from around $500,000 per gigabyte in 1981 to less than $0.03 per gigabyte today. This includes the period of the Thailand drive crisis in 2012 that spiked hard drive prices. Matthew Komorowski has done an admirable job of documenting the hard drive price curve through March 2014 and we’d like to fill in the blanks with our own drive purchase data to complete the picture. As you’ll see, the hard drive pricing curve has flattened out.”
http://www.mkomo.com/cost-per-gigabyte-update
Eh? I’m sitting here with 4 external 4TB drives within sight and a handful more drives of varying capacity just out of sight. Total cost about a grand, even including the two $250 2TB drives I bought several years ago. This is what winning feels like.
“My Super Walmart does not carry any of the Keystone meats. I looked Sunday. And when I order them from http://www.walmart.com, they hit each can randomly with a ball hammer or a 2 lb hammer.”
As far as I know, the only Walmarts that stock Keystone Meats are the ones close to their production plant in Lima, Ohio. Some or most of the Virginia Walmarts stock them, but I don’t think any in NC do.
I’ve not had much problem with dented cans. If I order 24 cans from Walmart, I’d ordinarily expect to get maybe 18 completely undented cans, maybe 5 with very minor dents (like you’d see on a supermarket or Costco shelves), and 1 or zero with a really noticeable dent. I’ve yet to get any cans that were so badly dented that the contents might have been compromised.
What I can’t figure out is why Walmart ships loose cans. They sell a megaton of Keystone Meats, much of which goes to preppers. Like me, most preppers order a bunch at one time. Keystone ships them in cases of 12 cans. If I place an order with multiples of a dozen, why the hell doesn’t Walmart ship cases of them?
Yeah. USPS just delivered another 4 TB external drive to me this morning. $115 from Amazon. I have two 4’s and two 3’s sitting on my desk. I’m wrong. Actually, at the moment, two 4’s and one 3. The other three is in the den right now, connected to the Roku.
Speaking of Keystone, the installer is laying tile downstairs as I write this, and says we can walk on it immediately. That means we can get the downstairs bedrooms accessible again, and I can start buying LTS food again. (Barbara made me promise not to buy any more until downstairs was back to normal, and I’ve been pretty good about it. Since the flood, I’ve bought less than 100,000 calories worth.) And we do have 50 pound bags each of flour, rice, and sugar still sitting in the utility room, which we have to repackage.
Still, I just added a dozen more cans each of Keystone ground beef, pork, chicken, and turkey to my Walmart shopping cart, although I won’t actually pull the trigger until we’ve had time to get the downstairs back to normal. That’s 84 pounds, basically one can per week or 1.5 pounds per week for a year, which is a useful incremental upgrade.
Yeah. USPS just delivered another 4 TB external drive to me this morning. $115 from Amazon. I have two 4’s and two 3’s sitting on my desk. I’m wrong. Actually, at the moment, two 4’s and one 3. The other three is in the den right now, connected to the Roku.
I want to buy three internal 8 TB WD drives. I would prefer the WD blue 8 TB drive since it spins down between uses but WD has not released it yet. The current price is $265.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-8TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B01BYLY4DM/
I am waiting until the price drops down to the WD 8 TB external drive price which is $199. I may be waiting a while longer since the demand for the 8 TB and 10 TB bare drives seems to be HIGH.
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Desktop-External-Drive-WDBBGB0080HBK-NESN/dp/B01LQQHLGC/
I have read conflicting reports about people buying the WD 8 TB external drive and just pulling out the drive. Some people are reporting that the 8 TB external drive has only USB3 connectors and no SATA connectors. Some people say that is balderdash.
The installers are supposed to show up later this morning to get our downstairs floor installed. They’re putting in LVT, Luxury Vinyl Tile, that looks just like hardwood but has the immense virtue of being entirely waterproof.
I would love to hear of your short term and long term results with this. And the maker. The wife wants to put LVT in our office kitchen which has badly stained carpet. And then out into the circular hallway which is just stained concrete.
The Super Walmart here does not carry any of the Keystone meats. Actually, they don’t carry a lot of stuff anymore. Oil in quarts? Ha ha! But hey! Look at the wall of big flat screen TVs!
Getting Keystone stuff is almost a bother. My first order was “ship to store”. FedEx tracking said both boxes were delivered. The store lost one box and almost a month for a refund. The other box had two dented cans. My second order was to the house. Nice of the FedEx Home guy to sit the box in the driveway at the gate. Too difficult to push the button that opens the gate? That box had three dented cans.
My next try will be “ship to store” and dented cans will be returned on the spot. Assuming they don’t lose the box.
We researched it pretty well, and both short- and long-term experiences seem to be pretty good. It’s pure plastic, so it’s extremely water resistant.
Inside Editions, where we bought it, also hosts the NC DMV office for Sparta. They’ve had this same tile on the floor there for more than 10 years with heavy foot traffic the whole time from people wearing work boots, biker boots, etc. and it still looks like new.
As you’ll see, the hard drive pricing curve has flattened out.
I’ve been pretty happy with the 1 TB Firecuda hybrid drive I put in my Windows 7 laptop for $60, but the jury is still out regarding the long term.
I know, Seagate. Fingers crossed. Nothing important goes on that laptop, however.
Some people are reporting that the 8 TB external drive has only USB3 connectors and no SATA connectors. Some people say that is balderdash.
I’ve never seen a bare drive with USB3 connectors. Does a standard internal connector even exist for USB3?
8 TB external drive has only USB3 connectors and no SATA connectors
I would guess, and be quite confident in that guess, that the internal drive is your standard SATA with a SATA to USB 3 circuit board inside the case and only presents USB 3 to the external world. It would make no sense for a drive manufacturer to make two different interfaces on a bare drive.
Progs on the march.
If this clears the court challenges, I have no doubt that other cities and counties in WA State will look at an income tax of their own. Heck, the right legal decision would open the door for a state-wide income tax — probably the real goal here.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/tax-the-rich-seattles-new-income-tax-on-the-wealthy-sparks-social-media-firestorm/
I still have my EBay/broker checking account at a bank in Vantucky. Time to get that money out of WA State. It may already too late.
The progs (commies) have never stopped marching. Since the 1930s in this country. But history is boring, since no one reads it anymore. My youngest brother, bless his soul, has made himself a bona-fide expert on Murkan economic history during the entire Industrial Revolution, with a focus on late 19th- and early 20th-C. A guy who missed finishing his BS by one course at ZooMass a million years ago. He’s not, let’s say, optimistic about where this is all headed.
By contrast, Normals can’t organize a soup sandwich and prefer to fight among ourselves and preach to the choirs on FaceCrack.
I’m through fighting with you guys. Let’s kick some ass.
Progs on the march.
If this clears the court challenges, I have no doubt that other cities and counties in WA State will look at an income tax of their own. Heck, the right legal decision would open the door for a state-wide income tax — probably the real goal here.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/tax-the-rich-seattles-new-income-tax-on-the-wealthy-sparks-social-media-firestorm/
I am pretty sure that the Cities of Austin, Houston, and Dallas would like to try this trick also.
We’re sitting in an Admiral’s Club at JFK wating for the flight to Vegas. We got in on our Mil IDs. No check for Active Duty or in uniform. Their site doesn’t list a need for orders anymore. Sweet.
Speaking of taxes the measure to repeal the California gas tax increase is to be titled thus..
The office of Democratic Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra approved language that describes the repeal thusly: “Eliminates recently enacted road repair and transportation funding by repealing revenues dedicated for those purposes.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-state-releases-title-and-summary-for-1499738419-htmlstory.html
slimeballs
You guys need to repeal THEM.
I am pretty sure that the Cities of Austin, Houston, and Dallas would like to try this trick also.
Austin aspires to be a Northwest city.
Dallas is effectively bankrupt once police pensions are factored into the financial situation. Dunno about Houston.
Re: Taxes in Seattle. I’m thinking that if you’ve worked for Messysoft since say 1990, and are looking to retire at some point while cashing in on all your stock options, you’ll be sure to make sure you don’t actually live in Seattle when you do so.
Dallas is effectively bankrupt once police pensions are factored into the financial situation. Dunno about Houston.
Houston is just as bankrupt as Dallas is. Houston has done a better job of holding off the wolves though. Houston has 90% of final pay pensions for life after 20 years of service for ALL employees. Plus a COLA for all pensions. Plus accumulated interest on delaying pensions after 20 years of service. Absolutely freaking crazy where the economics make no sense. And the actuarial firm that provided the pension cost estimates purposefully low balled them.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/houston/article/City-may-sue-firm-over-2001-pension-estimates-5607697.php
This pension thing is a huge problem for the progs. When you consider that they have two major constituencies–the underclass and government workers–how do you think public pension systems going bankrupt are going to affect the support of the latter? Not just the retired employees who lose their pensions completely or have them slashed, but the ones still on the job? If you’re a cop and your dad is a retired cop, when they start screwing with his pension you’re quickly going to realize that yours is toast as well.
And, since you can’t get blood from a stone, everyone who’s expecting a pension is screwed. Granted, public employees/retirees will be the last to suffer, but they’ll end up getting screwed just as badly in the long run.
That’s one reason the progs are screwed, as they ultimately always are. The question is, how far are we going to let them drive the country down before we give them what they deserve?
Cali wants to tax your retirement income no matter where you live currently, based on the idea that you EARNED it in Cali, and that gives them a hook.
Freakin’ nuts.
Oh, and the IRS will wait for your money, the California Franchise Tax Board will garnish your wages for as little as $300 still owed on a partial payment. In other words, if you (forex) owed $600 (like my friend, cough) and could only pay $300 when it was due, they will file to garnish your wages IMMEDIATELY for the now past due $300. Don’t fuck around with california income tax. They’re more vicious than the IRS.
n
And, since you can’t get blood from a stone, everyone who’s expecting a pension is screwed. Granted, public employees/retirees will be the last to suffer, but they’ll end up getting screwed just as badly in the long run.
The city, state, and federal pension plans are nothing compared to the disasters that Social Security and Medicare are. These are the ticking clocks that are taking the feddies under.
I’ve taken apart external hard drives and found no usable SATA port anywhere. These were 2.5-inch drives, Western Digital brand — but I’d expect that strategy to be shared by others: when you’re making tens of millions of drives, the design overhead of having two different models of controller board isn’t that big a deal, and it does save money to put everything on one board rather than having an extra converter board in the external drives.
“Dallas is effectively bankrupt once police pensions are factored into the financial situation. ”
Just FYI: A few months ago there was a BILLBOARD recruiting for DPD on the freeway near downtown Milwaukee. Hmmmm.
Cali wants to tax your retirement income no matter where you live currently, based on the idea that you EARNED it in Cali, and that gives them a hook.
If the retirement money is coming from CALPERS, they probably have a valid argument. If the retirement is coming from UPS, they can go pound sand.
I’ve taken apart external hard drives and found no usable SATA port anywhere. These were 2.5-inch drives
The external drives I took apart where the enclosures for 3.5″ drives and they all were standard SATA drives with an adapter to provide USB support. Have not disassembled a 2.5 drive enclosure.
I have put together some 2.5″ external drives purchasing the case with a USB — SATA interface. The drives were standard desktop drives, SSD to be exact, that had been rescued from non-functioning systems. Sort of nice to have 0.5TB external solid state drive for $15.00, the cost of the enclosure. Rescued from a MacBook that was being tossed. Others are smaller but just as fast.
If the retirement is coming from UPS, they can go pound sand.
Nope. CA can force UPS to have CA state income taxes withheld from any retirees paycheck even if the person lives outside of CA. If UPS does not comply CA would simply not allow UPS to not function in CA by withdrawing their business license. I suspect UPS would cave rather than worry about a retiree having money yanked from their account.
I got into a fight with Oregon over 1972 taxes. I had reenlisted in Hawaii and got a $10K reenlistment bonus. In late 1973 I relocated to Texas (with a 7 month detour in Colorado). Oregon said I owed taxes on the money as I was a resident of Oregon. I said no, I had changed my official address and had a gotten a Hawaii driver’s license during that year. I now had a Texas license. Oregon said it did not matter as I had not notified the state of my change in residency.
Went round and round with the state via mail and phone calls. The state would not budge. Last major event was I found the money taken from my checking account from my bank in Texas. How they got the account information is a mystery. So I dutifully filled out a tax return and found out the state had taken too much. The state never did return the excess amount. It was only $15.00 and the state said I had filed the taxes too late and thus could not get the money back. I suspect it was penalties and the idiot on the phone had no clue.
Any government taxing authority, especially at the state and federal level, can do just about anything they want. Even if they are wrong they never apologize and will put the burden of proof on the taxpayer. Anything involving taxes you are guilty until you prove you are innocent.
We have a resident expert/victim on here named Mr. OFD.
I hate income taxes. I hate state income taxes in particular.
My wife almost finished her father’s 2016 income taxes and then passed it to me for the rental property depreciation portion. I have not been able to find the schedule yet.
Don’t get me started on taxes, amigos.
Just got a letter in the mail from you-know-who, and lo and behold, the 2016 return I filed now needs another form completed, plus two schedules. While I’m still slaving over the 2015 stuff. So they just keep churning this shit for months and months, in our case, years, and stacking up penalties and interest on top of it. My sorta rough guess is what we will allegedly owe about $150k to Fed and state brigands and pirates and highway robbers. As soon as I wrap up that paperwork and the 2015, I’m taking the whole mess to a tax lawyer accordingly. And we’ll just see what we can do.
Wait, I said don’t get me started, didn’t I? Sorry.
But Mr. Ray is correct; these fuckers will come after you with hammer and tongs, no matter where you live in the world nor whether it’s right or wrong and they are accountable to nobody. No different from an international criminal cartel, not at all.
Back from Planning Commission meeting and limped back across the street through yet another monsoon downpour. We discussed scenic and natural resource preservation in the town and I learned a bunch of new intel, per usual. Also tough to keep my eyes focused away from the secretary and the intern, dressed in their summer clothes. Yikes.
I almost always learn something reading this blog.
Today I learned about LVT / LVP. I have been wondering what to use to replace the crappy faux wood flooring ruined by liquids. We will look into this next year.
And Nido dried milk may be what I was looking for as a bearable real milk replacement. I am picky about milk having grown up on a family dairy so I will give this a try.
“I almost always learn something reading this blog.”
Ditto. I am also interested in that LVT/LVP stuff for our kitchen floor, which is a disaster.
Will run it by the wife, whose immediate reaction will be, per usual whenever I bring up anything to do with visual things on the house WE own together: “Oh that looks AWFUL.”
I have nearly zero say in what goes on WRT that stuff here. So far.
We will be doing a remodel next year before putting the house up for rent. Needs flooring, bathroom remodel, Interior paint, and deck refinished. We won’t make much off the rental but letting someone else pay off the mortgage is the goal. As we move on to retirement and running our own businesses.
Just got a letter in the mail from you-know-who, and lo and behold, the 2016 return I filed now needs another form completed, plus two schedules. While I’m still slaving over the 2015 stuff. So they just keep churning this shit for months and months, in our case, years, and stacking up penalties and interest on top of it. My sorta rough guess is what we will allegedly owe about $150k to Fed and state brigands and pirates and highway robbers. As soon as I wrap up that paperwork and the 2015, I’m taking the whole mess to a tax lawyer accordingly. And we’ll just see what we can do.
OK, I gotta ask and I get a bad feeling about this. When Mrs. OFD transitioned from employee to independent contractor, did she start withholding about 35% of her payments to the feddies ?
I did a glue down vinyl tile in my rent house kitchen. It was 18″ squares, with grout in the spaces between. Looks like real ceramic, except where it bends over the high spot in the floor. Got it at Lowes, but I don’t know if they still carry it. It looks great and held up well for the last 2 years. Some of the grout popped, but that happens with ceramic too.
House moves too much for ceramic on the floor. Vinyl was a good choice.
n
” When Mrs. OFD transitioned from employee to independent contractor, did she start withholding about 35% of her payments to the feddies ?”
Your bad feeling would be the correct feeling to have.
And nothing for the state, either.
So now I’m the point man on years of this negligence. Smart as a whip on lots of stuff but won’t open mail and money is a huge problem up here. Theoretically we should be doing OK, even with me not working, but the back and current taxes are killing us, as is the continued support of the 25-year-old able-bodied and smart-as-a-whip and talented gorgeous daughter.
I’m juggling about a dozen problems/issues now, the big ones not of my making, and if I was working full-time, I wouldn’t be sleeping very much. Not that bad when you’re 20-30 but us old dotards gotta have that.
To answer your question as an update; she’s withholding that % now in a separate money market savings account.
To answer your question as an update; she’s withholding that % now in a separate money market savings account.
I ain’t asking any more questions, I don’t wanna know. You might want to google “innocent spouse irs” though.
And I am surprised that they have not taken your house away from you. That is the first place they went on me 30 years ago.
They take the house they get nothing from us, ever again. Follow that out to its logical conclusion.
And I am surprised that they have not taken your house away from you.
Indeed. Many years ago I got a letter from the IRS stating they were going to put my house up for auction for an $11K tax bill. Taxes that had not been paid from years gone by. However, they had the wrong person. Same name, different SSN. So the fuckers were going to sell the house of someone that did not owe the money, just because they can. Never did get a letter indicating they were in error even though I requested such.
“They’re putting in LVT, Luxury Vinyl Tile, that looks just like hardwood but has the immense virtue of being entirely waterproof.”
We have wood-look LVT on the floors of our bedrooms, offices, and corridors, and stone-look LVT in the kitchen and utility room. It is clean, warm underfoot and hardwearing. Recommended. We have bamboo parquet (also recommended) in the living-room and ceramic tile in the bathrooms. The original flooring of the entry hall is slate/schist, which is a disaster – much too soft and easily scratched for a high-wear area. We’ll be replacing that with either ceramic tile (my preference) or stone in due course.
Here ya go, Lynn, Nick, and uh ech? Whoever the third person in the Houston area is. You can feel safe on the roads for sure.
(And note the mother’s age. Would this be some more of that cultural vibrancy that we staid white folks need?)
Little young lady from Pasadena?
Last major event was I found the money taken from my checking account from my bank in Texas. How they got the account information is a mystery
Was this a large bank with branches in Oregon and Texas?
I’m going to pull my broker/EBay bank account out of WA State ahead of the possibility of income tax, but I was planning to go with one of the large local credit unions to avoid problems in case WA decides I owe them something after being sentenced to Vantucky for four years.
(Considering how financially screwed we were in WA State, I think they owe us, but we’ll never collect on that.)
I don’t think so. Frost National Bank which I think was a single bank as at that time Texas did not allow branch banks.
As for moving funds it may be a good idea. My impression of the state and feds is they take what they want without asking. It then becomes your problem if it was their mistake. Money gone for a couple of years for which they pay 0.10% interest. Of course they charge us 25% interest.
Yeah, I’ve tried to convince Barbara that we should keep $100K in cash on hand. She won’t go for that, or even $10K. We do keep probably $1K in cash. I hope we don’t come to regret that it wasn’t more.
Let me repeat something that was around for years and has now probably long since been forgotten, by the late, great Murray Rothbard:
“The State is a band of thieves writ large.”
Plain and simple. They’re just another international criminal cartel.
And they stop at virtually nothing to get what they want, mostly loot, and power over the rest of us.
All that rubbish we were taught in American Government and American History classes back in skool was a load of malarkey. Constitution this and Bill of Rights that. What a colossal joke on us!
Yeah, we’re better off than just about all other countries and we have de facto 2A which has been continually whittled away at since, coincidentally, the 1930s, like most other commie shit. So it is what it is, and we also know that the whole thing is not eternally sustainable.
RE: IRS
Just after new years 1995 my eldest son was nurdered (age 21).
I had to quit my job in Nottingham UK and return to the US for the trial. I went into a deep depression for months and just couldn’t deal with filling a tax return for 1994, or much else. When I filed for 1995 the IRS “reminded” me I had not filed the previous year. We negotiated a payment plan of $240 a month to pay off the small tax liability and HUGE penalties and interest. Over the next decade I paid $240 a month every month. In 2004, I wrote the IRS asking how much longer I would need to make payments. They wrote back “Oops … we found you have overpaid. Here is a check for $20,000”. I was gobsmacked. Then they tried to tell me that the $20,000 should be declared as income. I did convince them otherwise as I had alredy paid taxes on it every year.
Our house in San Antonio had a lien by the IRS. Supposedly for $300 in unpaid taxes. Turned out to be their error after threats of “taking your house.” We got a carbon copy paper with an “X” on “lien cleared” after I proved no taxes due. No call, apology, etc. as all of you never got.
The USPS has paid us INTEREST on work done for them that wasn’t paid on time. I would like to work for them again and see if they still did that on late payments.
” Then they tried to tell me that the $20,000 should be declared as income.”
See what I mean? Thieves, plain and simple. Scum.
And they’ll slap a lien on or freeze all your accounts at the drop of a hat for ten bucks you were alleged not to have paid twenty years ago and it’s still their mistake, which YOU have to prove at your own time and expense and after you do, zero apology. They actually act pissy about it, if anything, that you had such temerity.
We’ve lost many hundreds due to one of their mistakes and their attitude and that of the bank was “tough shit.”
But again, don’t get me started….
They take the house they get nothing from us, ever again. Follow that out to its logical conclusion.
Dude, don’t let them take your joy.
Luke 1:14 New King James Version (NKJV)
14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+1%3A14&version=NKJV
I know, Mr. Lynn; I have to keep reminding myself that this vale of tears is just that; a temporary vale of tears, but that it’s also one of joy for having our lives, no matter how messed up things can get. And always beaucoups examples of peeps dealing with worse chit than I’ve ever had to deal with.
As for taking our house, we’re in our 60s and not in the greatest of shape, so we really don’t have anywhere else to go at this point, and even less so as more tempus fugit. As wife has said, we’re going out of here feet-first.
Okay guys, move to Australia.
I have none of these problems – one of my second cousins (a registered accountant) does my tax returns each year, I pay him around $200 for that, and it’s all sweet.
I’d pay three times that for each year’s tax returns from now on.
I pay my accountant/ Enrolled Agent about $600 and it’s worth every penny. She always saves us at least that much, plus files the 1 inch of paperwork that is required. As an Enrolled Agent, she can stand in court and represent me to the IRS.
My advice to anyone who files more than 1040EZ is to use a qualified accountant/tax preparer (and preferably an Enrolled Agent), and not some chain affiliated storefront. Your ongoing relationship is what will save you money, as she will know about your depreciation schedule, home office stuff, vehicles, etc.
Like going to a doctor when you are sick, it’s one of the costs of doing business (literally and as such is deductible).
n
Roger that, Mr. Nick.
Our chit WRT stuff like that has been badly neglected over many years and I am now in the business of making it straight and narrow. It’s a tough slog, too, but I took it on like a good cowbow-upper should.
Once I get the 2015 and 2016 papers together finally and in to the buggers, and we get whatever response from you-know-who, we’re going to a lawyer. After that, like you say, an Enrolled Agent from now on. This could all take the rest of this year and into next, the way things are going.
And to top it off, I have a big load of stuff going on with the VA WRT to voc rehab and my medical chit and disability filing.
I’m really, really glad, on many levels, I don’t drink anymore, because I would have just blown all this off long ago and let the chips fall where they may. But boy, I could sure see where it would DRIVE somebody to drink.
No, you’re paying Danegeld.
And once again, Mr. SteveF is correct, or partially so; the Danegeld went to the actual Dane interlopers, mostly criminal brigand scum who should have all been hanged en masse as soon as the Anglo-Saxons and Celts might have managed it.
We’re paying to a THIRD party so as to keep the interlopers the fuck away from us.
Hey! Speaking as a Viking-American, I resent the piling on.
-shrug- So am I. And so would I, if it weren’t accurate.
OFD, I don’t agree with the distinction between the tax preparer you hire and the govt tax agencies. Nor do I distinguish between government agencies and the lawyers who help you navigate forms and regulations and other bureaucracy. They’re all part of the same system, regardless of where their pay comes from.
It’s a specious distinction, admittedly. They’re all flunkies for the System, which is mos def rigged against us from Day One. So yeah, it’s pretty much Danegeld.
Alfred took care of some of these interlopers when he got the chance.
Okay guys, move to Australia
Australia, like New Zealand, won’t grant residency to persons over 55 on the theory they will cost the country more than they will contribute. You can buy residency with $1 million or more inward investment in a business or just deposit it in the bank. I’d return to NZ in a moment if I could get the visa but I let that opportunity slide by. Sigh.
My wife and I had a pretty simple system to cover her self-employment tax and income tax estimated payments. All of my wages as a rocket scientist, except for $50/week for my lunches and sodas, was direct deposited to a money market savings account. Every quarter we did estimates and sent that amount to the IRS. If she had a good quarter, sometimes we took money from her business account to cover it. I did the estimates by setting up a fake tax return from the last year’s version in Turbo Tax, I’d put in the main deductions – malpractice insurance, billing service fees, pension contribution, home interest, charity, etc. from the previous year. Then each quarter I’d total up her receipts from the year to date and annualize them. Put that in as the income for the year, see what we would owe, send in a quarterly based on that. I usually hit the taxes to within a few percent. If the year’s Turbo Tax was available before the Jan 15 payment, I’d do a rough return and get a good figure for the year.