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Condessa

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Everything posted by Condessa

  1. I did every year until last year. Just followed the step-by-step instructions from the IRS, no need for software. Last year, dh's small firm offered to pay for their tax person to do the partners' taxes, too. I was relieved--I had never had any issue with doing it myself, but that was the year dh became technically both a part owner and an employee, and I was stressing trying to figure out what that meant for taxes. I would have figured it out eventually, but having someone else take care of it was a nice luxury.
  2. It's not that I dislike surprises so much as that I would rather have what I really want than be surprised by something I don't prefer. I really appreciate that dh no longer tries to surprise me with gifts, but instead asks me to tell him exactly what I want, because it means that instead of being surprised with things like jewelry, I get gifts like interesting breeds of day-old chicks. But it's not the fact that it's a surprise that's a problem; I have been absolutely delighted on the rare occasion that someone anticipated my preferences well enough to surprise me with something I was excited about. I just recognise that that's really hard to do for someone with interests as weird and particular as mine.
  3. I tried a new recipe and made colcannon for dinner last night. It worked out to $7.75 for the family, and we’re eating the leftovers now for lunch. It is an especially good one for getting extra calories into my underweight kid, so probably not one I should eat too often, myself.
  4. I agree with you on this point. I think that a lot of good would be done by removing many residential zoning restrictions that restrict higher-density housing from being built in many areas. People who dislike higher density housing and want to live in neighborhoods without it nearby could still choose neighborhoods with CC&Rs restricting that, and all other residential property owners could have the option of building several smaller dwellings, or duplexes, or adding a tiny home to the yard, or tearing houses down to build apartments, or taking in several roommates, and the supply of affordable housing would increase. This is especially a great option to increase the housing supply in higher population centers.
  5. So restricted housing supply driving prices up is a terrible crisis that we desperately need to address when you see STRs as a driving factor of the restricted supply, but when the restriction is driven by the federal government holding that land for renting out to businesses for profit, this is a non issue? Restricting individuals from using second homes for income purposes so as to make more homes available at lower prices is a great public good for those most disenfranchised, but restricting the government from holding the majority of the land for income purposes to make more property available at lower prices is "benefit[ing] a very few private individuals, constitut[ing] a form of entitlement"? Make up your mind. Are the people who would be helped by increasing affordable housing supply (by whatever means) a very few private individuals seeking entitlement, or are they a significant portion of the population that needs help to overcome current disadvantages?
  6. The federal government owns the majority of the land in my state. (They own 47% of all land in the western states). I am totally in favor of the government maintaining national and state parks, but most of this land in my area is not in the form of parks that the public can make use of. It is mostly vast tracts of land managed by the BLM or the forest service, usually rented out for use by private ranchers as grazing here or to logging companies near our old town for profit. In our neighboring state, these vast government lands lie right on the edge of the state capitol which has been undergoing exponential growth in recent years. Within twenty minutes' drive of my town in more than one direction, I can reach vast tracts of government land that take hours to drive through. It is not the most desirable locations, but neither is it useless or so out of the way that no one would be interested in buying it, rather it is identical to the privately owned lands of ranches and smaller, affordable outlying communities like ours. The government lands near my old town on the other side of the state would actually be very desirable based on their proximity to desirable locations and are close to an area with an extreme housing crunch, but it is also very profitable to the government through the logging industry. I am not talking about the last bits of green or open space, but places where there is far more open space than there is land owned privately. I recognise that this is a regional issue that doesn't apply in many other areas, but in much of the western U.S., government held lands are a huge factor in keeping the housing supply limited.
  7. I currently have seven from the local feed store-they were hybrids I think called Golden Comets. I have fifteen chicks coming this summer from the hatchery, and I have Cream Legbars, Whiting True Blues, Cuckoo Marans, Light Brahmas, and Egyptian Fayoumis coming. I am looking forward to playing with chicken genetics in future generations.
  8. Mine are not treated with anything. They haven't worn out yet in four years of extremely heavy use, though I did replace a couple that the kids played with and lost. I accidentally bought smaller ones when I got the replacements, and the smaller, newer ones are looking kind of raggedy already, so I would recommend the large ones. I have timed it and my dryer takes about 12 minutes less to complete a full load on the sensor dry setting, but you need to have enough balls in each load to make a difference--about 8 balls. They do get stuck in pant legs, etc., and need to be fished back out. They are noisy, so that might be an issue. I'm not a very good judge of how much bother they would be because I'm hard of hearing.
  9. I'll get things started here. I have been tracking our medical mileage as we go along since the start of the year for taxes, and I can see that I must have been missing a lot of miles with my prior efforts to work out mileage after the fact. We drove over 1,000 miles for medical care in the first two months of the year, and that is with ds currently off treatment! I am itching to order seeds for the spring and at the same time resisting, because I don't want to commit myself to too much gardening for so soon after the baby comes. The farm supply store had a sale the other day where everything was 10% off. I went and bought as much chicken feed as I can fit in my feed bin with gift cards I bought there in December when they had a $30 gift card for $25 sale. We now have chicken feed for the next two months and I calculate that I am currently getting my eggs for about $0.92 per dozen in feed costs, pretty good when the cheapest store bought eggs are nearly $3/dozen right now. We currently eat all the eggs our chickens produce, but I have chicks coming in June. Because there is a minimum order size, we will have more chickens with the next generation than currently, and I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile to see if any of the neighbors are interested in buying eggs once the new batch starts laying. They will be very pretty eggs, with some interesting colors. Selling our extra eggs might be a great little project for one of the kids to take on to help save up towards college.
  10. Wool dryer balls replaced dryer sheets here about four years ago. They prevent the static and also make the loads finish drying faster. I do keep a box of dryer sheets on hand for when my mom comes to visit and help me, as she is allergic to wool, but if you don't have a wool allergy I prefer dryer balls, and I never have to buy more.
  11. -Store bought bread and bagels (I get mine for very cheap from a bakery outlet store, $1 per loaf or bag, but making my own would still be under half that in ingredients + power, and my family goes through a lot of bread) -Disposable diapers (I used the old fashioned trifolds with pins and plastic pants at two points in the past when things were tight for us) -A dryer and the power costs to use it, if we hung things to dry -Laundry detergent (I actually gave up buying detergent this past year, when I decided to try making my own because of the cost and discovered that my inexpensive homemade detergent works better than the store bought kind) -Paper towels (we have gone to rags for cleaning in the past when things were tight) -My monthly date out with dh -Heat the house with the wood fireplaces in the winter (we've done this on two years) -Be colder in the winter and hotter in the summer -Take our trash to the dump instead of paying for garbage service (used to do this in our old town where it was more expensive, but I sure have appreciated having this convenience since we moved here!) -Individual flossers vs. a roll of dental floss -Give up oldest's gymnastics class and the younger kids' summer music lessons (the younger kids' extracurriculars are covered by the homeschool charter we use during the school year, but oldest is in public school) We already don't buy alcohol, coffee, or tea, rarely any soft drinks or convenience foods, and rarely eat out, other than our date night. I cook from scratch, raise our own eggs, save on utilities with well & septic, cut the family's hair myself, buy clothes from thrift stores, cut off and hem my kids' pants with worn out knees into shorts for the summer, etc. I have felt like there really isn't much fat to be able to trim, but this exercise has reminded me that there are still quite a few optional luxuries/conveniences that we enjoy!
  12. And there need to be reasonable housing options available. In some areas, that may necessitate limiting short-term rental properties. I didn't say don't address the problem, I said solutions that don't take away people's rights should be tried first. Except that I didn't say that at all. I said that if there are other solutions we could use, those should be used before resorting to taking away people's rights. It isn't just some evil, money-grubbing resource hoarder that you protect when you adhere to a policy of the least infringement possible on personal rights. It is everyone. In this particular case, everyone who owns property or would consider owning property in the future, from the aspiring young home owners you want to help to the big, bad corporations to the older couple maintaining a couple of rental properties to help afford their retirement, as well as the non-property-owning folks who prefer to stay in a single family home when they need a short term rental. But in general, it protects every one of us to avoid taking rights away from people if we can find another way.
  13. But why should another option for short term rental needs not be allowed to exist? I get that some people dislike them, but others greatly prefer them. Is there a compelling motivation to remove the option for everyone, rather than allowing people to choose for themselves? I believe that a compelling motivation to remove people’s rights would have to fall under either a moral wrong, or a significant widespread public good that cannot be achieved in any other way than through the removal of individuals’ rights. Making money off of one’s property is not a moral wrong, so it comes down to the public good. And the question is Is the public good worth it, and can that good be achieved in any other way? If there are other possible solutions to achieve the same good, is it conscionable to instead remove the rights of individuals?
  14. A house is a home. Many people who make money through Airbnb or vrbo do so by renting out part or all of their personal home. People I know who now own a few airbnbs started that way, then saved up their profits to invest in other properties. Many people who make money from real estate get started by retaining what was their primary residence when they upgrade their home and turning it to investment purposes. It’s not BS to call a house a home, whether or not someone makes money from it.
  15. Yeah, I would prefer that, unless an individual has chosen to give up certain options in exchange for certain guarantees of how neighboring properties will be used by choosing to live with CC&Rs, they should have the ability to turn their property to money-making means. Including incorporating or selling to a corporation.
  16. In general, I favor leaving restrictions on vrbo and airbn-type rentals to CC&Rs rather than encoding them in law. That way, people who want to protect a certain feel of neighborhood from the influx of vacationers can have that, and people who don’t mind and want to have the option of earning income off of their property that way can have it, too. My sil’s state has a similar attitude toward residential/agricultural zoning, and I love how those who don’t want stinky animals in their neighborhood live in neighborhoods with CC&Rs where they don’t have to deal with that, and those who find it charming get to live in the neighborhood with a mini farm or two plopped in the middle of a residential street and stop on their walk to let the kids pet the neighbor’s lambs each day. The path that leaves the most options open for people and involves the least governmental restrictions on people’s lives is usually preferable, in my opinion. I would much rather increase affordable housing options through other means than by restricting the property rights of individuals who have already acquired homes. (In my region, specifically, I think that the government should increase the supply of affordable property by gradually selling down their excess land holdings).
  17. I keep checking to see if there are planning threads yet for my kids’ grades. I guess I need to just be the one to start. Ds will turn 12 this summer. He’s pretty lopsided in different areas. English-I don’t know. Possibly level 4 of MCT? My oldest went straight from MCT Voyage level to CLRC’s Writing and Composition class, which I was very happy with, but he is not ready for that yet. MCT level 4 doesn’t look as appealing to me as the earlier levels, and it would be nice if we had something that didn’t require as much direct teaching time from me, but I haven’t seen anything that looks better to me, yet. He will be finishing R&S spelling 6 and starting 7 and he will keep going with the Pictures in Cursive workbooks until he has completed them all. Math-Probably AOPS Intro to Number Theory with me and then AOPS Intro to Algebra B. I hope they come out with the self-paced class by then, but we’ll probably have to choose between the normal class or doing it from the book with me. Science-I’m leaning towards CLRC’s Earth Science and Astronomy class. He would love to also take AOPS’s Intro to Physics course, but I am worried it would be too much for him with the rest of his online course load. History-I don’t know, but maybe literature based utilizing OUP’s World in Ancient Times books. Foreign Language-BYU IS’s Spanish 041 class at a slow pace. Maybe light Latin, too? I keep wondering if I should just drop the idea of Latin. I always planned on having all the kids get some Latin before high school, and it was great for my oldest, but this math and science boy has a different trajectory. Computer Programming-AOPS Intermediate Programming with Python. Logic-Fallacy Detective I meant The Thinking Toolbox, we are doing Fallacy Detective right now. Music-cello Physical Education-judo ETA: I’d also like to add in some geography. If anyone has ideas for an interesting and easy-to-implement geography that doesn’t require much drawing, I’d be interested to hear.
  18. We have a goal to set aside $12K per kid in a combined mission/marriage fund. If our kids choose to serve a mission for our church, we will help them with enough so that they only need to earn $3K of the cost themselves (so we would pay $6K for the girls and $9K for the boys, whose service time is longer). If they choose to get married, we will have the balance set aside to contribute (so $6K for the girls and $3K for the boys), and they can use it all towards a wedding reception or just towards getting started in life if they want. Early marriage is pretty common for us, so it's entirely possible we will be having kids serving missions and getting married in the same window that we are paying for 4 kids to start college within 5 years of each other, so it seemed prudent to set aside funds for these possible expenses. At the same time, we don't have a lot to contribute for fancy weddings, and backyard or no-cost church receptions are the norm for us, so hopefully 3 to 6 thousand will be enough to help.
  19. I was in a car accident yesterday (in the newer, recently paid off car) and spent the night in the hospital. Baby and I are both fine, though for a while there afterwards it was looking like she was trying to come early. I have never caused an accident before. I’m so glad the other driver was okay. I still don’t understand how I didn’t see the other car. I wonder how much they are going to raise our rates over this.
  20. Slightly chewier than stew meat would have been, but still soft enough that I could easily cut my toddler’s meat into smaller bites with the edge of his spoon.
  21. It was already cut up. They also had whole hearts for 10 cents less per pound, but I went for the shortcut.
  22. My kids love beef stew but I haven’t made it in a while as I haven’t seen beef at a price I was willing to pay recently. They have been requesting it and I was looking at beef yesterday, and the cheapest cut was over $5 per pound, except they had beef heart for $2.50 per pound. I’d never eaten or cooked with heart in my life, but Google said that it has a nice beef flavor but can be tough unless cooked a long, slow way. I decided to give it a shot, and the stew was amazing. Everyone loved it. The meat was tender after long cooking, the broth it made was amazing, and I think that is going to be my go-to way of making beef stew from now on.
  23. Maybe homemade granola bars? With nuts to include some protein?
  24. Yes! My due date is actually April 5th, but we’re aiming for 37 to 39 weeks because of the blood pressure issues I’ve had in the past, so mid to late March. But so far my blood pressure has done really well. Baby is a girl to even things up at our house, and we’re going to name her Abigail and use Nabby as a nickname.
  25. Baby is coming next month! I was offered some hand-me-downs for her that turned out to be in absolutely perfect condition. Many actually still have tags on them. Other than a few odd items like socks, we are set for clothes now. I got one of those plastic drawer sets for her clothes. I need to give the bassinet and car seat a good scrubbing and get a few more swaddle blankets, but other than that we’re ready. I was gathering paperwork to get taxes taken care of and discovered I had missed a change in a 529 tax credit for our state that meant we needed to contribute more to get the full credit, so I borrowed the difference from our emergency fund. I also have the IRAs topped up for last year now. It will take a while to refill the EF and to catch up with starting this year’s retirement contributions. Hopefully there will be a profit distribution from dh’s work sometime in the next few months that will help with that.
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