Thursday, April 06, 2006

Taxes

I procrastinated long enough and finally finished my taxes. I'm actually going to get a decent amount back because there was a four month period from just before graduation to finding my current job where I wasn't working. That led to my taxable income being fairly low. I should get a decent amount back from federal and state. I plan to do three things with the money: put some into my vacation account, put some into savings, and spend a bit. I might get a new digital camera (lots of great deals going on right now at bensbargain.net) or I might use some of the money on something else.

I think, for some, this is one of the tough things to balance. How much to save versus how much to spend. I know a few people who spend whatever they have. Sure, they have all the cool gadgets (which will drop 50% in price in months...), but they have no plan for the future. I also knew one guy who was quite old (past retirement) who was still working even though he was worth millions.
Personally, if I was in his situation I would travel and spend time with family. The one thing I keep in mind is that I want to be worth millions some day (need to set those goals high), but I can't bring the money with me after I die! I don't want to just store all my cash, if I could afford to buy a few things I want. I think it will definitely be something that I will keep in mind as I grow older.

It also helps depending on the type of person. For instance, I like gadgets but I'm not the one who goes out and buys them when they first come out. I have a mp3 player, a digital camera, and a laptop. My mp3 player (not an Ipod) was cheaper than the Ipod and had four times the battery life. My digital camera is old, but still works well. My laptop is over a year old, but still working great. I could take my next paycheck and buy a new laptop, camera, and Ipod; but I really don't want to.

Other news
I still need to invest more and I'm thinking about a few other options besides stocks.
My math class is going well and I think I'm balancing work and my other activities fairly well. Although this week has been rough, leading to a lack of sleep.
I mentioned a potential online business and we're hopefully going live within a month. My involvement so far is more for financial guidance and planning. I probably won't discuss this site unless it becomes profitable. Right now it's a learning process for us.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What kind of MP3 player do you have? I want to get one, but don't want an Ipod.

savingadvice said...

I have a small Sony one
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0008JFCWY/sr=8-1/qid=1144800942/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0721480-2193415?%5Fencoding=UTF8

I got it awhile ago, so they might have a model with more memory. The one I got is 1gig, which is fine with me. They have a different compression format where almost 700 songs will fit. I just stick to mp3s and I can get about 180 or so. The one thing I like is the battery life: 50 hours. Which, at the time, blew away the competition. The other cool feature is that if you have no battery life, you can plug it in to a usb cable and in only 3 minutes you'll get 2-3 hours of playing time.
Con: the display is hard to see in the daylight