Tax Day

I filed my taxes a few days ago, but today seems like an appropriate time to talk about them.

Because I had imputed income this year, I new that I would be owing taxes and estimated the amount to be $150 a month or $1,800 a year combined for Fed and State.

Unfortunately my estimates were a bit off. Due to dividends and capital gains I ended up owing $2,245 - almost $450 more then I thought. Ouch.

I also calculated that my average tax rate based on total taxes owed/AGI was 16.6% for Fed and 5.9% for State, or 22.5% combined. Because I didn't buy a house or a car the tax stimulous had almost no effect on me. Come to think of it, I don't believe I even know anyone that the stimulous helped...

Additionally, because I owed the Fed more than $1,000 I might owe a small penalty. I never new that rule existed, but I probably should have did more tax research knowing that I had imputed income. Sigh. Why is the tax code so complicated?

I hope everyone is planning on getting your taxes in - otherwise you could face big fines for filing late.

Zipline in SF

There is a temporary zipline in the plaza across from the Ferry Building!?!?

Yes, it is a collaberation between ziptrek and the British Columbia tourist industry. And the best part? It's free!

So of course I couldn't pass up the chance for free fun.

I got a little lucky in that the cloudy weather kept the throngs of people away and I only had to wait in line for 5 minutes to get my wrist band. Other people have reported waiting for an hour or more - some couldn't get a wrist band at all because they had already given them all away. To be safe, if you want to zipline, it's best to get there early.

So how was it? Awesome. After signing a waiver, they get you in a haness and helmet. From there you get to climb to the top of a 150 foot tower and clip on to the line. Once you're safely and securely cliped in, just lean back and off you go - 20 seconds and 600 feet later you land at the other side of the plaza.

It is a ton of fun, I spread my arms like I was flying, laid back horizontal, spun around and even got partially upside down. I don't think 20 seconds has ever gone by so fast before!

If you're in the area and have some free time, I would definitely recomend you take a ride down the zipline while it's still here. It's only here until the end of the week so don't wait too long.

It's fun, adventurous, thrilling and free! It's also a great promotion for BC, which I now kind of want to go visit - I've always heard good things about Vancuver.

Health Care Reimbursement Account

This year I opened a health care reimbursement account for the first time. These accounts let you pay for health care expenses such as doctor visits, dentist and eye care expenses with pretax dollars.

This is my first time with an HCR account so I started with a modest amount - $260 or $10 per pay period.

After enrolling I received what is esentially a debit card with a $260 balance that you use to pay for an allowable medical expenses. Each plan has different allowable expenses, so if this is something you are considering check with your HR department and read the literature they have available.

Because you pay pretax a HCR can be a great way to reduce the cost of medical expenses - so long as you can make a reasonable prediction of your yearly medical expenses. However, HCR plans are use it or lose it style plans, so if you don't spend as much as you thought you were going to there is no way to get the money back. This can also lead to people getting a lot of optional things (prescrition sunglasses, extra boxes of contacts, preemptive wisdom teeth extraction etc) in December rather then just lose the money.

I used it for the first time yesterday, charging a $20 co pay for an eye exam so I have roughly 7 and a half months to use the remaining $240 or I'll be one of those people ordering things I don't really need just so I don't completely lose the money I paid into the account.

Does anyone have more experience with a HCR account, or have any good tips for what to spend the money on if you have extra at the end of the year?

Opening Day

Baseball started this week. It may be 2 months early, but for me this is the unofficial beginning of summer. As usual there were some major player movements this year: Halliday to the Phillies, Lee to Seattle, Holliday resigning with St Louis, Bay to the Mets, Lackey to Boston - what does it all mean, if anything?

Here's how I see things.

AL East: Yankees - simply too much talent not to win

AL Central: Twins - the loss of Nathan won't be as bad as a lot of people think.

AL West: Angels - Scioscia still has enough guys to get them past trendy pick Seattle and into the playoffs.

Wildcard: Boston - they should have tremendous pitching and an offense that's good enough to get them past the Rays for the wild card.

NL East: Phillies - should we give Halliday the Cy Young now or do we have to wait until the end of the year?

NL Central: Cardinals - Pujols and Holliday back to back, wow. In a weak division that should be more than enough, never mind they have good pitching.

NL West: Diamondbacks - This was the hardest division for me to pick but I'm going with the Dbacks on the theory that Webb and Haren will be healthy (two big assumptions) and some of that young talent will flourish. I’d like to pick the Giants as the home team, but I don’t think they have enough offense to get it done.

NL Wildcard: Braves - the Braves always have solid pitching and Hayword will give them enough offense to grab the wildcard.

ALCS: Yankees vs Boston - I like Boston's better rotation in a head to head series.

NLCS: Phillies vs St Louis - again, I'm going with St Louis because of the better pitching depth. I'll be the first to admit there is no one outside of Linsicum that matches up with Halliday though.

World Series: Boston vs St Louis ala 2007 with Boston winning in 6 games, again relying on their pitching.

Now I get to sit back and watch as the baseball gods make a mockery out of my predictions.

Easter deals

I love Easter. Spending time with friends and family, the food, the drink, the good cheer - not to mention the candy.

I also love the day after Easter, aka the day everything goes half off. Stores don't want to clog their shelves with candy for a holiday that won't be back for another 364 days, so they mark everything 50% off and blow out the inventory. I went to Walgreens around 1:00 in the afternoon Monday and already the selection was pretty thin. Most of the good candy (aka the chocolate covered marshmallow bunnies and eggs) were all gone but I was able to score bags of M&M's and a few other goodies as well as an egg dyeing kit that was only $0.50 for some fun later in the year.

Did anyone find any especially good deals this year?

I'm sad to report but I experimented with a new candy this year, the brand new chocolate covered marshmallow peep, from who else but peeps. It was truly awful. The marshmallow was yellow, tasted funny and was oozing a weird sticky sap. I very much doubt I'll ever buy another one of those peep chocolate marshmallow monstrosities again. From a company that makes a marshmallow candy covered in sugar that has a nearly infinite shelf life, I wasn't sure what to expect but I was expecting something much better then what I got. That's a giant fail for you peeps.