Those are the odds that you’ll get audited this year by the IRS. It’s not quite as likely as the probability that you filed for bankruptcy last year, but it’s close. Some of the flags that increase the chance that you’ll be audited: Not reporting all of your income, especially income that the financial institution … Read more
When it’s worth almost 1.85 cents. Political Calculations commented on my calculating melt value post and led me to a neat site called Coinflation.com. This site tracks the melt value of common U.S. currency. As you may have noticed, metals recently have gone up in price sharply. Gold and silver are trading at multi-decade highs, … Read more
I’m a horrible procrastinator. As such, I’ll be filing an extension this year for my individual income tax return and a pass-through entity income tax return for a partnership I’m involved in. Since I’m expecting a refund this year (I claimed more withholding exemptions for 2005 than I did for 2004, but still not enough, … Read more
No, not destroying your credit card statements by scrunching them with all of your weight on one foot. But seriously, a very good friend of mine recently worked his way completely out of credit card debt. That’s good, but I didn’t realize the extent. Close to $40,000! It took years to get out of this … Read more
If you’re into precious metals investing, one good way to get involved is to own bullion (the metal itself) directly. You can buy bars of the stuff, or buy coins with a substantial content of some precious metal, like gold, silver, palladium, or platinum. The more current, more common bullion coins are pretty straightforward in … Read more
I chatted this morning with one of my wife’s uncles. We’ve both been watching the precious metals market recently and he was the first to break the news to me that silver cracked $12. After we had chatted for a while, he said that investing in precious metals (which I had started to do a … Read more
The first flea market of the season was on April Fool’s Day. Here’s what I picked up: A metal 8-shelf document tray for a quarter. Old and sturdy. This is $32.99 at Staples now. An old Scrabble game for a quarter. Scrapbookers buy just the tiles for about $5/set on eBay! An Ikea stool that … Read more
Ran across a couple of posts about regular expenses that can cost you a ton of money in the long run: My Money Forest posts on an article he found in the OUDaily about how snacks can eat you (or, at least your retirement!) My Money Blog saved $250 on haircuts in one year by … Read more