I'm only halfway through the thread but I wanted to mention that anxiety that you know you're going to run out of likes but you can't stop anyway.

Here's a link to explain the differences between allowances, exemptions, and deductions. I'm talking about allowances, which effect the amount of tax withheld throughout the year. Deductions are taken at tax filing time. When you start working at a job you fill out a W-4 and there's a worksheet to calculate your allowances and that helps your employer figure out how much to withhold from your paycheck. Theoretically they don't know how many dependents you have, whether you own a side business or rental property, etc, so they have you do the worksheet to give them an idea. The worksheet is very generic, though, and based on the number of dependents. Other factors, deductions, side businesses, etc that are not taken into account on it can cause too much or too little tax to be withheld for your individual situation. If you find yourself getting a large refund at the end you can ask your employer to adjust your withholding to less by increasing your allowances. This will give you more money throughout the year. If you're good at saving and have access to extra income, you want to owe the taxes at the end. If you're worried you won't have the money at the end if it's left to you, try to break even.

Got it, thanks. That's really too bad the "throughout the year" part went away. Talk about going after the more vulnerable.

Do you mean allowances, rather than exemptions? I believe there is no limit but if you claim more than 10 the IRS will double-check the amount and tell your DH's employer if it's too many. Did the employer actually get a letter from the IRS telling them he could not claim more? The worksheet they use on the W-9 is just a suggestion as far as calculating allowances. One year we ended up in a very weird tax situation (don't ask) and we claimed something like 24 allowances and it was fine.

If you're waiting for tax time to pay for these items try and have less money withheld. No need to give the government a loan when you yourself need the money. Even though it's late for 2014 you can still fix it for 2015. :grouphug:

I think when this crisis has passed you should look up a a data recovery service (not Apple) in your area. I do not know the answer to your question but they will. I'm talking about a service like this.

What Jean said. Call the counselor. Even if he or she cannot tell you what's been happening in the sessions, I'm pretty sure you can give them input into the current situation. Perhaps they know of resources. Are you sure the pictures are not recoverable? You'd be surprised. Data has been recovered from items from the bottom of a lake, run over by a car, etc.

It doesn't take that into account because Mergath's own example was one in which they literally invested every penny of their minimum wage earnings. Of course that would be impossible, but it was to demonstrate that even if every penny were to be invested with no place to sleep or no food to eat, this would be the outcome. I don't understand the people are asking why posters are not taking expenses into account when the original example was based on the idea of an outcome based on literally no expenses. People are just answering the question....

Wh do you think everyone in this thread hasn't had "income advantages" from birth? How would you define "income advantages" then? I must be missing something.

I know someone like this. Don't send them the money. This is a problem of their own making and is also within their control to solve. I would help if something had happened outside their ability to stop it but that's not the case here.

We've read Chronicles of Narnia and did The Hobbit next. So I said no in your poll to LoTR, but that's because I think the (related) Hobbit is a better place to start the series. We're doing LoTR in the new year.

With the possibility of a few statistics that run contrary to popular belief, from what I know about you the book is not going to make you feel better about capitalism. :grouphug: Paradoxically, it may make you feel better about millionaires though. :D

Probably mayonnaise.

Well sure, but all she's saying is that people who have access to that privilege still have to make the choice, and she does. Plenty of people don't avail themselves of saving money when they could. That's different from someone who doesn't have the privilege at all. Can it not be simultaneously true that it's a privilege and that people who have that privilege handle it in different ways?

I feel as if you're conflating one direction with the other. If you are upper middle class, receive a stellar education, have parents who send you to an Ivy-league or Ivy-equivalent college, and make important connections, you are quite likely to become wealthy. But if you actually survey real people who are wealthy, most of them did not take this path. TMND is about this very topic. So it's true in one direction, but not really the other. It's like an easy, visible trail up the mountain, but when they arrive at the top, they find it crowded with others who weren't on that trail at all. The other trails are more varied and individualized, though, so they don't receive as much emphasis because it's not as easy to derive a pattern from them. As primates we like patterns and find them reassuring so we over-emphasize this one very visible and easy to understand pattern, while failing to discern the other, lighter trails.

Aaargh. I wrote a long post about the book and tried to submit w/o realizing I had lost my internet connection. Post eaten. TMND is not a self-help book or a "get rich cheat sheet". It's simply a survey of millionaires and how they live and the results challenge Americans' views of millionaires. Perhaps we are less naive now, but at the time the book was popular, a fair summary would be to say not all rich people live like Dynasty, and not all people who live like Dynasty are rich. People really seemed to have this idea and were surprised to find that the average millionaire does not have a glamorous job and drives a 10-year old American-made pickup. Stuff like that.

Agreed.

Check out non nom paleo and search for beef. Her best recipe is the Korean ribs but you don't need ribs for it. I've used the sauce with all kids of beef roasts and it's fantastic.

My friend had a family like this. Every year they bough the same apron for everyone and had their name put on it. It sounds silly, but they liked the idea that each time they put it on they were wearing the same thing even though they were far away. It was nice that it didn't have to be sized or anything. Like this, using the personalized option. It wasn't whether they already had an apron or not, it was that they all had the same annual apron for the year and were connected that way. There's a kid size too, if she wants to feel connected to grandkid(s), maybe? How about a credit at Audible? Even though she doesn't need books, would she enjoy listening in the car? A donation to a cause she supports?

Lisa was a typical soccer mom, working part-time as a dental assistant and spending time with her sweet daughter Allie after school each day. She enjoyed her job; her boss was nice and she liked that she was able to be home every day when Allie arrived home from school. She had a solid marriage to her husband John and was generally happy. One day Allie came home from school chattering happily about a new Disney movie, Frozen. She'd heard about it in school. Could Mom take her to see it on Saturday? Sure she could. Allie had been doing well and had been very helpful around the house. They went to the movie and they both enjoyed it. Lisa and Allie would both enjoy humming "Let It Go" while doing their work in the house or yard, sometimes singing the words in the shower. It was a great and catchy song. Sometimes Lisa would allow Allie to watch the Youtube video. Eventually she relented and allowed Allie to buy the soundtrack after Allie saved her allowance for several weeks to get it. The house was filled more and more with the refrain "Let it go, let it go..." over and over again. Lisa began to tire of the song. She also noticed a change come over both Allie and John. When she asked them to do some task or assist with something, they would sing "let it go" in her face and simply not do it. John was becoming annoying and Allie was cultivating a bad attitude. It's as if the song had a strange hold over them. Lisa tried to fight it. Her marriage was crumbling, her relationship with her daughter was in the trash. She was tied of being told to "let it go, let it go" over and over again. She was the only one on the house doing any cleaning or tasks and she couldn't keep up with the trash, dishes, and laundry John and Allie left all over the house. That song was some kind of curse, it seemed. The final straw was when the furnace broke and John told her "the cold never bothered me anyway." Christmas was coming. Lisa wracked her brain to figure out if there was some way to pull everyone back together over the holiday. She decided she needed to replace Frozen with Rapunzel. At least that stupid "Let It Go" song wasn't in Rapunzel. If she could get her family to stop singing that to her face anytime she needed anything, it would be a huge improvement. She gathered her resolve and went to Target. She had heard about a Rapunzel night-gown that even lit up! Allie would be so excited and she would forget that crazy, soul-destroying song forever!!! At first she started looking through the racks in a methodical fashion, but as she couldn't find the gown her hanger flipping became more and more frenetic. It had to be here, it just had to be! Wait...wait...was this it?! Was this the answer to her prayers and a way to salvage her family? She grabbed the cheap polyester gown made in China and clutched it to her chest. Suddenly it started playing stifled music. As the familiar refrain washed over her for the thousandth time, she felt her mind slipping. Some part of her started to realize it was over, her family was over. Barely holding back the screams, she asked the sales clerk about the Rapunzel gown. The clerk insisted it didn't exist. She tried to argue; she had to cling to this hope of somehow saving her family. She wasn't ready to accept reality. Perhaps if she could have had a few minutes alone in the dressing room she could have caught herself. But that's not what happened. Instead, as she was turning away, feeling like she was barely holding on while listening to the tinny sounds of the song that had ruined her life, the clerk casually said, "I think you should just let it go." A simple statement, really, and helpful advice. The clerk had no way of knowing what would happen next. Lisa simply broke, as torture victims forced to listen to the same song over and over will. She began yelling, screaming that there had to be a Rapunzel gown. Some homeschool-looking mom was giving her The Look, but she didn't care. She wanted, needed, them to call and see where she could buy this gown for the sake of her family's future. Surely one of the clerks could drive to the next state for the sake of a family, right?! I mean was the holidays, after all!!! Epilogue It was a rough Christmas for John and Allie, visiting Mom in the asylum. Everyone, including the doctors, agreed it was the song, the stupid song. And having that "Frozen" crap everywhere was making it worse. It was better she was locked away, which was really the only way to escape it anywhere in the U.S. But in the end for Lisa, it was a good holiday. There was many other moms there, kind and good women who had been driven insane by the Frozen marketing machine. The had a wonderful Christmas dinner and afterwards, sung some carols followed by songs from The Little Mermaid. When they were released after the new year, the all exchanged a phone list and agreed to meet at the same time, same place next year. Thus, a new holiday tradition was born!

I don't like in a cold climate but I have a suggestion anyway: bodyweight exercises. Take a look at fitloop and You Are Your Own Gym. The latter is a book of bodyweight exercises and also has a women's version and DVDs. There are some Youtube videos you can check out. Basically they're exercises in which you use your own bodyweight to get fit, minimizing or eliminating equipment. A small indoor trampoline is valuable when you can't go out.

Going back to legal examples and offering an example of something outside abortion, wedding cakes, etc I offer my personal favorite: (This is the story of the voucher program in Louisiana that was set for kids to be able to use vouchers to go to religious schools. Then a Muslim school applied for funds and they realized "religious" is not the same as "Christian" and all heck broke loose.)

Wow, your digital pie pamphlet is quite persuasive. Tell me about the pie-based afterlife. I'm just...ahem...curious. :drool:

I'm so aggravating even reading this. :cursing: Do all your laundry first and she can have the machine when you're done. You already told her what the deal is. Perhaps if it becomes too inconvenient for her she will stop. Just give your brother a key so you don't have to coordinate and leave one. It would be good for emergencies as well.

Lots of walking Royal Canadian Air Force Exercises 3x/week Swimming in warm weather One PE session w/ a trainer friend 1x/week Martial arts 2x/week