At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

Hey Obed. . . I got some stuff I need to sell. You do such good work sellin' stuff. Do you take consignments?:laughing:

Jim,
Selling the storage trailer ate up some time. I suppose it would go faster if I posted a phone number. I didn't post my phone number so people had to send me a message via craigslist. Then I either called them if they provided a phone number or I e-mailed them my number if they asked for it. That process was rather time-consuming.

I've become a craigslist fan now. I had never bought or sold anything using in before. I'm almost amazed that anyone uses newspaper classifieds anymore. Buying newspaper classified ads can be really expensive.

Obed

 

[Obed]

I thought for sure you wold be getting ready for the `garden`, and the location of the garden is important Then the landscaping around the house would naturally follow the garden and further `fall` would be coming, so a barn of some sorts would be nice for you ...You sure have done a great job...Tony ps anything more about the fireplace?

Tony,
The garden is going to be a real issue. Unfortunately I doubt there will be a garden this year. We have piles of logs and a burn pile in the clearing where the garden will eventually go. We have more trees we have to take down around the house and burn in the garden area so we wouldn't be able to plant a garden until the planting season is past.

Also, sunlight is an issue. We might have to take down more trees in order to get enough sunlight for the garden. We'll take down more trees if we need to for the garden. A garden is really important for my wife and I love eating the vegetables out of it. I'm already feeling the lack of vegetables in the freezer and on the table now now since we didn't have a garden this past summer. Stuff from the supermarket just isn't the same.

Obed

 

[Obed]

I spent today working on my taxes.

We cashed out some mutual funds to build the house. We bought the most of the funds between 1998 and 2000 and sold them last year. The funds were worth 28% less than what we paid for them over a decade ago. I knew the return on the investments were really bad but it was painful to see the final numbers. We would have been better off to have invested in a mattress and stored the money under it.

I really feel for people who have reached retirement age recently. Unless you have a government job or a union job with a pension, retirement is very difficult when you watch all your retirement savings shrink during the decade preceeding your retirement. Even though my wife and I are pretty frugal, I don't expect to retire when I'm 62. I like working so I'll probably work until health prevents me. But there's a difference in working because you want to and working because you have to.

When doing my taxes today, I found out (or remembered) that we can deduct sales taxes from our federal income taxes. What is significant for us is that we can deduct the sales taxes from all the construction materials we used to build our house. If we paid $100K in building materials we would save about $1200 in taxes at our tax rate and state sales tax rate. So my wife now has to go back through all our construction receipts and total the sales taxes. Knowing we'll save some extra money on income taxes is due to house construction is something I wasn't expecting.

The tax code is much too complicated. It takes way too much effort to keep records just for taxes and to file a personal return. I have tax files for the past 20+ years. I wish there were no deductions for personal income taxes. I also wish that businesses could all take the same deductions without any special credits and tax breaks. The manipulations we have to perform to minimize our tax payments is obscene. If nobody had tax deductions, the end effect would be that we would pay the same amount of taxes overall; it just wouldn't be so time consuming.

Oh well. I guess that's just the way things are.

 

[Obed]

... anything more about the fireplace?

Tony,

We took the face plate and control panel off of the fireplace and observed the controls that let combustion air into the fireplace. It looked to me like the hole to let air into the fireplace was cut an inch too far to one side and prevented the air hole from ever being completely open. However, the only way to confirm that suspicion is to observer another fireplace just like ours and see where the combustion air hole is located. Unfortunately, we are having trouble being able to find a fireplace to inspect. I haven't heard anything from the store that sold us the fireplace since they came out to our house and the district manager who took part in the house visit hasn't returned my call.

Last week we had temps down to the mid-30's a couple nights last week so we built a fire. Although we can do things to make the fire burn, it still seems to me that the fire doesn't burn as well as it should with the glass doors shut. However, proving the problem to Quadrafire is hard to do. They just claim that our wood is too wet or that it's an issue with the location of the fireplace in the house.

The only other thing I can think to do, is to repeatedly call the fireplace store and make a pest of myself. They are a chain and have other locations. I can only hope they might be willing to let me go look at a Quadrafire fireplace in another city where they have it in stock or have installed it at a customer's location. I would be willing to travel a few hours to inspect another fireplace. If I saw that another fireplace was manufactured just like mine, I would have to assume that my fireplace was not defective and I would live with it as it is.

I suppose as a last resort, we could involve a lawyer but I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far, especially for something that is so hard to prove.

Obed

 

[Diamondpilot]

I love CL and Ebay but it can be a pain dealing with people. I buy and sell boats on there. I probably do 5 or so a year. I was prepared to go to Cincy today and get one but a last minute phone call to the buyer turned me off.

Always makes me nervous doing 30K to 75K deals but its always worked out for me.

Chris

 

[Bill 55]

Obed if you can't get a garden this year check around for local Farmer's Markets. Sometimes you can find good deals on local raised fruits and vegetables there. It is amazing some of the things I have found at a couple of these. Everything from honey and fresh eggs to Amish baked cookies , bread, and pies. Prices generally are good too.

 

[dcyrilc]

I spent today working on my taxes.

We cashed out some mutual funds to build the house. We bought the most of the funds we sold between 1998 and 2000 and sold them last year. The funds were worth 28% less than what we paid for them over a decade ago. I knew the return on the investments were really bad but it was painful to see the final numbers. We would have been better off to have invested in a mattress and stored the money under it.

<snip>

Sorry, but I almost rolled on the floor reading this. It's sad, but so true.

As for government employees doing better, I work for a local city. Have for 6-1/2 years now. My retirement package is actually still worth less than what I have physically paid into it. The funny part is we have a supervisor who is very vocal about his beliefs and I over pay my taxes each year to ensure that I will have enough cash for paying the following years property taxes. He used to really harrass me about doing this and tell me that I'm better off putting it onto our retirement fund until I started printing the retirement stats and showed him that investing in IRS gave me a better return than our retirement did. He always got real quiet after I proved him wrong with the figures.:laughing:

I will say that after 6-1/2 years, I am almost breaking even again.:confused2:

 

[radioman]

I spent today working on my taxes.

We cashed out some mutual funds to build the house. We bought the most of the funds between 1998 and 2000 and sold them last year. The funds were worth 28% less than what we paid for them over a decade ago. I knew the return on the investments were really bad but it was painful to see the final numbers. We would have been better off to have invested in a mattress and stored the money under it.

I really feel for people who have reached retirement age recently. Unless you have a government job or a union job with a pension, retirement is very difficult when you watch all your retirement savings shrink during the decade preceeding your retirement. Even though my wife and I are pretty frugal, I don't expect to retire when I'm 62. I like working so I'll probably work until health prevents me. But there's a difference in working because you want to and working because you have to.

When doing my taxes today, I found out (or remembered) that we can deduct sales taxes from our federal income taxes. What is significant for us is that we can deduct the sales taxes from all the construction materials we used to build our house. If we paid $100K in building materials we would save about $1200 in taxes at our tax rate and state sales tax rate. So my wife now has to go back through all our construction receipts and total the sales taxes. Knowing we'll save some extra money on income taxes is due to house construction is something I wasn't expecting.

The tax code is much too complicated. It takes way too much effort to keep records just for taxes and to file a personal return. I have tax files for the past 20+ years. I wish there were no deductions for personal income taxes. I also wish that businesses could all take the same deductions without any special credits and tax breaks. The manipulations we have to perform to minimize our tax payments is obscene. If nobody had tax deductions, the end effect would be that we would pay the same amount of taxes overall; it just wouldn't be so time consuming.

Oh well. I guess that's just the way things are.

Oh yeah!! I know the feeling all too well. When you are working as a computer contractor and some companies will pay the IRS recommended mileage and other don't, it becomes a nightmare to count pennies for each day, each customer, getting the difference for the whole calender year.

 

[Obed]

Oh yeah!! I know the feeling all too well. When you are working as a computer contractor and some companies will pay the IRS recommended mileage and other don't, it becomes a nightmare to count pennies for each day, each customer, getting the difference for the whole calender year.

Yes, I did work as a computer contractor for about a decade. I was a sub-chapter S corp and kept meticulous records of my mileage. After two years of using a certain CPA for doing my taxes, I noticed that he had not deducted my mileage on my tax returns which cost me about $2000 dollars in unnecessary taxes. When I challenged him on it, he did not even appologize for the error but made some excuse and tried to make it sound like it was my fault because I had not sent him the mileage records in the way he supposedly wanted them. So instead of talking to me about the issue, he just didn't include my mileage on my returns.

Obviously I fired him and got another CPA whom I paid $400 to file ammended returns for the two incorrect years. The new CPA also observed that the original guy had not deducted some other things for which I was elgible. The new guy got me back about $2500 that the IRS owed me and became my CPA for almost 10 years until we moved out of state. He charged more than the first guy but overall I paid less due to the extra tax savings.

When I left contract work and became a regular employee, it was a real relief to not have to keep up with all the paperwork required for the taxes (quarterly estimated payments, unemployment paperwork, FICA, etc.) I actually really liked doing contract work but I hated the tax related paperwork. However, operating as a sub-chapter S corp saved me about $5000 per year in taxes so I just accepted the drudgery. Sometimes, though, I wondered if the headache required was worth the payback.

Obed

 

[tony Cecil]

I`m sorry about the fireplace , and the savings account......I can`t understand how an actively managed fund did nothing for ten years....what a shame....and the fireplace issue is probably one to move on from...No Need to just upset yourself...It works to a degree, and maybe when the chance comes you could study it and possibly do some modification on your own to make it work as you want.....I was further quite concerning about the insulation......Do make sure that the pipe need not be a double walled or even triple walled...I`m not sure I understand it properly....Just make sure you do....

As the garden is going where the burn area is, make sure the ash from the fire does not somehow mess up the soil.....That could cost you another year of skimpy eating Tony