My Dumb Luck

I went out this afternoon to change the license plates on Karen's and My cars. Mine went fairly simple. And the rear plate on Karen's car went really well too. It's no big deal. It's just 2 screws...

Well the screws on Karen's front license plate were just spinning and not unscrewing. Now a lot of plates are just screwed into the bumper, this was not the case with her car. It had a rubber grommet in the bumper to hold it on.

Well the only way to get to the grommet is to take the bumper completely off the car...




And here is the beast itself. Looks like the screws were rusted to the inside of the grommet. I WON!


Anyways it took me 2 hours to do a ten minute job. Gotta love that.

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Cell Shot Sunday

Here are some random pictures that I have taken from my phone in the past couple weeks.

At the airport waiting in the security line that stretched all the way into the parking garage.

Saw this truck driving down to San Diego, think he needs more stickers...


And finally a shot of a truck that was twice as tall as our car. I looked out the window at this guys bumper.


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We're Landlords!

Well if you don't read Karen's Blog we finally got someone to lease our townhome in Hillsboro! The signed a 1 year lease. This is great since Karen is having some troubles finding a job, and my pay was just barely paying all of the bills. But now that we are landlords, this should free us up quite a bit, and make us much less stressed out.

Oh and sorry for the total lack of pictures lately on my blog. Cause I know I am not the best of writers, so i can't be that interesting to read. But I know I am a much better photographer... (Or at least I think so)

Nater

More Tax Fun

I finally got my taxes done on Tuesday, thats right, the day they were due. I have always been done early but this year sucked.

Little note to everyone, NEVER go into HR Block. They are utterly useless! It cost me $300 to get my taxes "done". Which basically consisted of someone typing in numbers. Which I wouldn't mind if they knew what was going on... There were many times where they would ask me a question that was on their screen and I would say, "Not sure, what should I look for?" And I got a response back like, "Not sure what do you think?"

I could have received the same help from their software that is $25, instead I decided to pay someone to type numbers in for me...

I am angry about this! You would think that going in would provide more help than just using the software, so I am going to write a long email to them with a serious complaint. Because I am scared I will get audited now... I caught them 3 times in mistakes, had to mention it to them, then they would fix it. So since I was doing their work do I get a discount?

Nater

Tax Fun

Since I was an Independent Contractor last year, there was no way I was going to be able to do my own taxes. So I went to HR Block. I spent 1.5 hours there with this nice old lady, we went through all my receipts, all my school info, all my FlexCar info...

And when we get done she looks at me and says I am going to owe about $2300 in Federal Taxes! Heard that and threw up a little. I found out that when you are self employed there is a flat 15.3% Self Employment Tax, no matter how much you make. This is added onto your general tax. So even though I only made like $18k and my taxable income is only $11k, my Federal and State taxes come out to almost 30%!

OUCH

And then last night I got a phone call from HR Block Customer Service. They called saying they wanted to ask me about my experience. Their only question was, "Do I have any concerns?"

I thought to myself, "Should I? That's why I went to you...."

So now I am a little scared.

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Zoom Zoom Zoom

So I found a great deal on a car. It's a 2004 Mazda3 Hatchback, only has 9400 miles, and the guy only wants $14k for it. I ran a CarFax on it, and it was clean, so I went to the bank to get the loan. I do all my banking at Wells Fargo since that is where my school loans, checking accounts, and credit card are. So naturally I got my Auto Loan through them. Well I finished up my paperwork on Saturday and they deposited it into my account that day so I could take out a Cashier's Check if I wanted to.

We drove up to Riverside (about an hour). Looked at and test drove the car. And after driving and seeing it, we decided that we would buy it. So I told the guy I needed to go to the bank to get a Cashier's Check. We went to a branch that was open on Sunday's, and tried to take out the money. I was denied! I was told that since the deposit was a check, they would have to wait 1 business day to clear.... Now think about this, it's a check from Wells Fargo, deposited in Wells Fargo... Why is there a wait period to clear???

Anyways, we weren't able to get the money, so we will have to go buy the car on Tuesday evening. I was so pissed off, cause now we have to drive up again... Here is a pick of the car, click on it to go to the AutoTrader website to see it.

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