Tag: money

Guess Again

~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

Just when (you think) the chaos in your life is at the maximum level, the post-office puts a bomb in your mailbox.

Mailbox

Not the exploding kind, but the kind that raises your blood pressure and makes the headache that you thought was already bad turn into a migraine. You know you’re in trouble because the return address is: “Internal Revenue Service” and it is not even near the holidays.

Sure enough, we made a mistake. A typo that our software should have noticed when it did the math. We were too excited about getting a refund for once, to realize something was off.  The official document  insisted we send them $10,000.oo. Yes, you read that number correctly. And who says the IRS has no sense of humor?

Hey! Wait a minute. There is a typo on our 2010 form and we have to pay them what we still owed. Plus interest. We were not the ones that took 2 years to find the mistake – we sent our return in on time.  Now they want the interest that the absent money could have earned. Oh, Really? I want to know where the Hell they invest their money. I would like to earn that kind of  interest myself!

I can understand about the interest. Almost.  But a fine??   Sorry, we messed up and here’s your money + interest. Now please go away.  But NO,  you’re  punishing  us. To teach us not to mess with the IRS? We don’t. Hell, they know how much money we earn – they have the damned forms.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.   Tax Form

We shall pay their bill (what choice do we have?), but not until the other chaos in our lives has settled down and we can find where we hid the damned thing….

photo credit(mailbox): Steve 2.0 via photo pin cc

photo credit (form): Josh Thompson via photo pin cc

My Million Dollars

~ JodiLea

Money RollI have often pondered upon this topic [What would you do with a million dollars, tax-free] before today. In fact, hubby and I have pondered this together and came up with a plan of action. No kidding. There is a plan. Now if only we can remember to buy lotto tickets..

The Plan:

  1. Keep mum. We don’t even tell our kids because ex-spouses & other hostiles don’t need to know.
  2. Pay off the mortgage on our retirement home. Put our current house on the market and as soon as it sells, probably at a loss – good thing we have bucks,we move on to #3.
  3. Retire. Think of all the writing I can do without my day-job! Hubby will be in his huge shop puttering and I will have all kinds of time to write.
  4. Invest some of it. Not most of it because only God knows what the market is going to do. Our million maybe safer buried under the big rock.
  5. Help our children out. With paying off student loans, that kind of thing. Things they need. Need being the operative word here. They can work for the stuff they want. We had to.
  6. Spoil the granddaughters. Take them to Disneyland, Hawaii. Of course, I will have to take their parents too. In case I need to “give them back” when they are grumpy.

I realize that my approach to being rich sounds boring to most people. Too bad. I have had all the drama and excitement (a.k.a., stress) that I need in this lifetime.

So bring out my rocking chair, would you dear?