4361

After the new short semester from hell (I am still swimming in grading and the finals won’t be back until Thursday and grades are due on Friday!) I went online to view my paycheck like the helpful email they sent out said I should. And I’m missing 1/3rd of my pay. Hooray! Looks like a day of arguing with payroll for me.

4362

Made some skillet potatoes last night, while chopping the potatoes with a freshly honed santoku knife, I managed to remove the tip of my thumb. I had no clue that you can bleed for an hour and a half with your arm raised, what a mess. I’d post a picture, but that’s nasty.

4363

Yeah, I’ve done that myself on one occasion. Blood everywhere and a couple of hysterical kids wondering if i was dying. Make sure you get a doctor to check it out.

4364

Ouch, Griddle. :) We have a couple of ceramic knives that I dearly love but I almost always cut myself while using them. It’s sort of a self fulfilling thing … I’m afraid of cutting myself so that’s all I think about while using them and then I cut myself.

Although I just bought a pair of cut resistant kevlar gloves so maybe I should break them out again…

4365

Oddly I have really decent knife skills, but recently, while making chili, I used my santoku to pry a lid off a can after my crappy can opener broke and the tip broke off. So my otherwise familiar knife that I could julienne with my eyes closed was off a bit. So, on the last potato, SLIIIIIICE! Off with the thumb, didn’t hurt a bit when it happened, but damn did that thing bleed, I actually lost enough blood to cause a kind of buzz, odd that.

4366

Yeah, typically the ceramic knife will cut me in such a clean way that it doesn’t hurt all that much but it takes awhile for it to finally stop bleeding. ugh.

4367

$850 refund check. Looks like I get to buy books this semester!

4368

You should adjust your withholding percentages for next year. You gave the government an interest free loan of $850.

4369

I keep telling you the government needs the money!!! Why don’t you listen?!

:) :)

Honestly though, you are better off with a refund than owing at your age Demon. Warren has all these money market accounts where he puts his millions, and you probably don’t have that yet :)

4370

That’s a lot better than getting with a huge unexpected bill. Especially for a college student. I’m firmly in favor of having a safety factor in the withholdings. A refund of $500 to $1000 is what I shoot for.

4371

Sure, but $850 seems excessive when I can’t imagine he’s making all that much to begin with. It can’t be hard to move the slider a little to the left and get, say, $250 back instead.

4372

Woah, this isn’t a refund from the government (well, kinda it is since it was from a government subsidized loan), it was a tuition refund. I underpaid due to a housing change and had to take out another loan to cover the difference, and then the amount got lowered and I got $850 back.

My return from the government is going to be all over $100, if not less. I work for an NPO most of the time and taxes taken out of it aren’t very high.

4373

Ahh, I misunderstood then. Use more words next time. :)

4374

Sorry. I forget it’s tax season. I don’t do my own taxes.

4375

Those are some beautiful photographs, Gordon! That sounds like a really cool place to go at that time of the year, especially Vienna. :)

4376

Thanks – yeah, I absolutely fell in love with Vienna. It was awfully cold, though.

4377

2% interest on $1000 for a full year gets you $20, and since withholdings will be spread out over the year, you won’t even get that much. I understand the logic, but unless you’re a government-hating libertarian doing it for spite, it’s really not worth the effort.

4378

2% interest on $1000 for a full year gets you $20, and since withholdings will be spread out over the year, you won’t even get that much. I understand the logic, but unless you’re a government-hating libertarian doing it for spite, it’s really not worth the effort.

Maybe it’s a personal thing. I’d rather have my money as opposed to letting the government hold onto it for X months.

4379

It’s not really personal, when I was having taxes withheld I used to adjust it so that we had more money during the year, but I could take a tax hit of $5k if things didn’t work out the way I thought I planned them.

I just think that if you are starting out and don’t have a lot of cash reserves, you’re better off with a refund check. And some people just really enjoy having a bunch of money come all at once for them to buy a new TV or laptop or down payment on a car or whatever. Given the standard savings rates nowadays it’s just not a big deal anymore.

4380

I’d say it’s better for someone to learn how to manage finances properly when just starting out. This stuff is dirt simple, and if you need a crutch like forced savings through government tax withholding so you can splurge on some junk, you’re probably d0med anyway. In pretty good company though. :)