Monthly Archives: April 2011

Best of the Rest: Estimated Taxes Edition

Written by in Best of the Rest, Taxes
2 Comments

I just send in my estimated quarterly taxes and boy is cutting a big check hard to swallow. It’s not easy to fill out estimated quarterly taxes because there’s so much, guess what, estimation!

It’s not simply about adding up how much I made in the first quarter and paying a 25% tax on that. Like most tax forms, it’s just more complicated. I just had to estimate how much money I am going to make in 2011! Sure, I can use the first 3 months as a base, but there’s SO much that’s unknown for me, so I guessed high, and if I’m wrong, I’ll just get some extra back come next March or April.

To top it off, I have to pay some self-employment tax, so it comes out to about 40% of my side business income. That sucks, I want my money back!

While I’m brooding over ways to avoid paying taxes, check out these great personal finance articles from some of my favorite bloggers:

My Failed Attempt to Understand Dollar Cost Averaging (via PT Money)

Spending or Saving? How to Balance Money Management With Your Life (via The Financial Blogger)

Side Business Idea For Geeky College Students: Hacking iPhones (via My Money Blog)

Job Hunt Taken to Absurd Levels – Plastic Surgery? (via Darwin’s Money)

Fun Facts About the 2010 Tax Season (via Bargaineering)

Saving or Investing Money to Get Rich (via Studenomics)

10 Things We Just Can’t Live Without (Even Though Grandma Did) (via Len Penzo)

2 Comments - Leave a comment!

Online and Offline Security – Are You Protected?

Written by in Money Stories
6 Comments

I store almost all of my information online. It’s not all top-secret, but if someone gained access to my information, I would be nothing short of devastated. So I put in some steps to protect myself.

The first is Google’s 2 step verification. It makes me enter a code (that I generate from my iPhone) in order to sign in. So unless my laptop and phone were stolen at the same time, anyone who steals my laptop wouldn’t be able to do much damage in that department. They’d have my music and other files (mostly from my high school and college days), but nothing they could use to steal my identity. And I have everything backed up on my external hard drive.

I love my iPhone. I’m probably definitely a little bit too attached, but I love having my life at my fingertips. Email, Twitter, Facebook all just a tap away. However, there are some downsides. In addition to all the fancy features, there are also some drawbacks, such as if I lost my phone for got it stolen, someone else would have access to my email, my bank accounts, and most importantly, my Angry Birds.

While it may seem like I’m vulnerable, I make sure I can be protected should something terrible occur. I take lots of precautions to make sure that any evil culprit won’t have my personal information, even though there’s so much potential for stealing loads of other stuff from me.

First, I set up ‘Find My iPhone.’ What this does is it allows me to locate my iPhone online using GPS, lock it remotely, and even wipe the data remotely before the wrong person can use it.

It’s a good first defense, but all my passwords are saved in there, right? With Google’s 2 step verification, if the villain is smart enough to turn off my Find My iPhone, he still won’t be able to access my Google information. Why? Because I’ll be able to go online and deactivate access to all Google services for that phone. So he’ll need my Google password, which he definitely won’t guess. Plus, I change it regularly enough

All my banking apps need passwords to enter that aren’t saved on the phone, so there are no worries there.

Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about my Angry Birds scores, but if losing that is my worst case scenario, I think I’m in a pretty good position.

In terms of offline security, I do a bad job. I don’t have a safe at home, and for some people, they have a self storage option that can secure the larger things. One good choice could be StorageMart.

Readers, how do you protect yourself online and offline?

6 Comments - Leave a comment!

Tips to Keep Your Health Insurance as Cheap as Possible

Written by in Money
2 Comments

You could be paying more for health insurance than you need to be. The policy that you purchased five years ago may not be appropriate for you now. That’s why I suggest reexamining your insurance needs every single year. You may be paying too much for services that you don’t need. If you want to lower your health insurance’s premium payments, these tips could help.

Health Insurance Tip #1 – Increase Your Deductible

You can reduce the amount of money that you have to pay on a monthly basis by increasing the amount of your health insurance deductible. I would suggest picking a deductible amount that is just enough to cover the emergencies you rather not. The key is having enough coverage to protect your assets, but not so much that you hurt yourself more financially in the short run than you need to.

Health Insurance Tip #2 – Look at Your Spouse’s Policy

Your spouse and you may want to examine your insurance policies each year to see who has the best coverage and what your options may be. You may find that you can save a lot of money by switching over to your spouse’s plan and abandoning your own policy. On the other hand, you may find that having separate insurance policies is the most affordable option. Each insurance plan offers different rates and coverages for dependents, so I’d suggest checking your options annually.

Health Insurance Tip #3 – Buy Your Own Policy

If you get your insurance through a group policy at your job, remember to get outside quotes annually to ensure you aren’t forking over more in premiums than you may need to pay. For example, young people working in a small business with a majority of older coworkers may be paying more than they would have to on their own plan. You can quickly compare rates online to see how much a private plan will cost you versus the company health plan you are on right now.

Health Insurance Tip #4 – Get a Health Savings Account

A health savings account (HSA) can help you hold onto more of your own money. If you have a high deductible insurance plan and team it up with an HSA, you will get a significant tax deduction for your contributions and have lower premium payments at the same time. The drawback is the high deductible on your plan, but just a couple of years of HSA savings could be used to cover the high deductible in case of an emergency. An FSA is similar, but doesn’t roll over from year to year.

Health Insurance Tip #5 – Stay Healthy

Getting out of shape is not only bad for your health but it will cost you more money as well. Since people that are overweight have a statistically higher risk of disease, health insurance companies charge higher rates. Some companies get an overall discount by actively attempting to improve the overall health of their workers. I know several friends of mine that actually earn a few hundred dollars a year directly from their places of employment by keeping their cholesterol and blood pressure below acceptable levels. If you have your own personal policy, you have even more control over your premiums due to your personal health factors.

What other ways do you know of to keep your health insurance as affordable as possible?

2 Comments - Leave a comment!

Should We Tip in Cash or Credit?

Written by in Money
12 Comments

On the surface, this sounds like a small decision. Either way, the waiter gets a tip, right?

In practice, there’s much more to it. Tipping in cash can have positive effects for the waiters, but it can also have tax consequences that you may not want to take part in. Take a look at the advantages of tipping in cash vs. credit and let us know in the comments how you tip and your reasoning behind it.

Advantages to Tipping in Credit

Convenience

If you’re already paying in credit, it’s definitely easier to just add 15% and sign the receipt. If tipping in cash, you need to have the right denominations of bills or you’ll be forced to either underpay the server or pay them more than you planned on.

Better Expense Tracking

It’s much easier to track one transaction that gets recorded by your bank than to remember exactly how much you tipped in cash. Budget software can pull in the credit transactions automatically, but you’ll have to manually enter the cash amount or you’ll be left at the end of the month wondering where that $40 went.

Rewards!

If your credit card offers rewards or cash-back for purchases, putting the tip on a credit card could net you as much as 5% back on certain credit cards. If you consistently dine out and use credit, it could add up to significant savings each month. After all, you signed up for the credit card to get rewards, right?

Advantages to Tipping in Cash

Saves Time for the Server

Paying in cash helps the server because they can use that to make change during their shift. Instead of heading over to the cashier, having cash available ensures quick transactions and other happy customers. So many tipping in cash will give a boost to the server in tips from other customers!

Cash Can Be Hidden

While Credit is certainly more convenient, when you hand cash to your waiter, the waiter has two choices: Report that income to the restaurant owner to it gets recorded on their tax forms, or slip it into their pocket and avoid the IRS. With wages being low and waiters relying on tips for income, it’s hard to fault them to want to keep all of it, even if it’s considered tax fraud.

If you’re a concerned citizen who wants to treat your server right but doesn’t want to help them commit tax fraud, your best move is to tip generously if you can afford it. That way, the server gets a good tip even after taxes and you don’t have to carry around a guilty conscience for enabling someone to steal from the government.

Reader, should we tip in cash only to help out our waiters? Should we pay in credit to prevent people from evading taxes?

12 Comments - Leave a comment!
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »