Oh! I meant you aren't having enough *payroll taxes* taken out. I think you are thinking about the exemptions wrong! Have you ever seen a payroll tax table? The more exemptions you claim, the *less* withholding taxes are taken out of your dh's check each week. So if you claim 7 exemptions, they are taking out very little taxes each week to go toward your yearly tax liability. And if you claim Married 7 exemptions on your W-4, you will have a lot less taken out than if you claimed Single 7. To have the maximum amount on the payroll tax table taken out, you would claim Single 0, and then you can elect to have even more payroll taxes taken out each week in a specific dollar amount. I don't know if that helps you at all...

I haven't looked at a W-4 for a long time, but I think you're figuring it wrong. I could understand 1 for each of you, plus 1 extra for the child tax credit. That would make 5, right? Then *maybe* you won't end up paying next year.

You aren't taking enough out, plain and simple. Only one child under 17 does not make 7 or 9 exemptions. I know many people disagree with what we do, but here it is. My dh claims Single-0 on his W-4 so we have the maximum taken out. It is like a forced savings account for us. We use our tax refund to buy new (used) vehicles or make improvements on our home, plus purchase curriculum. If we had access to this money throughout the year in dh's paycheck, or even in our own savings account, it would get eaten up by the budget. Plus we have four children under 17, and although we are just barely over the income level to get the Earned Income Credit, we do get the Additional Child Tax Credit. Since I am a student, we also get the Tuition Credit. And this year we put some insulation in our house and changed out an entry door, so we were able to get the Residential Energy Credit. We also take the Standard Deduction - we don't have enough deductions to itemize. We Free File our taxes through the IRS website and it really is free. The free file vendors walk you through the steps, so it's not like you have to know what you're doing (even though I did used to work for H&R Block). But, of course, that won't help you take more out of each paycheck. You'll have to change your dh's W-4 if you don't want to end up paying at tax time.

http://www.unitedbuyingclubs.com/ There is a local dropoff point for the monthly order form, and again to pick up the order. Co-op members are supposed to do a job to be a part of the club. I help unload the truck. Although there is a minimum order for the club, here is no minimum order per individual. We have enough members (with large orders) to not have to worry about meeting the minimum. We split produce orders on pickup day.

I almost started this post when I saw her here last night! Glad to see you back, Abbeyej! :)

I have also vacuumed glass out of grass on more than one occassion. I used a shop vac.

Does she also give them the equivalent of "their" dependent exemptions? How about "their" child tax credits? That's just silly! It's meant by the government to provide a little extra relief to families with children.

I wouldn't pay. I would only send my kids to school in clothes that may or may not be ruined by various school activities (think art class). If someone accidentally marked an expensive shirt, that would be my fault for sending my kid in an expensive shirt. And it doesn't sound like the shirt is really "ruined" in any case. She should get over it. However, if *you* do decide to pay, I'd buy a new shirt for her and keep the old one.

I have the MFC210-C, which is probably the bottom of the line. The paper tray feels flimsy, but it works great!

I loved my Babylove Softwear One-Size Fitted cloth diapers with a Nikki (my favorite), Kushies at night, or Bummi Prowrap Classic.

Yup. Just you! ;)

Grapefruit Seed Extract. But it is *so* bitter and yucky! If I had a very sore throat, I don't think I could choke it down, even mixed in OJ. If you can swing it, antibiotics are a much better idea!

The additional $300 per child is correct.

I've never tried a Bravado, but the most comfortable nursing bra I ever owned was a Yes~! http://yesbreastfeeding.com:8080/yesbreastfeeding/care.jsp

when my ds saw the title of this thread over my shoulder he laughed and said, "You can't even read a history book to us!" :rolleyes: He's right :rolleyes:

Yes! Yes! I completely agree. :D

Congratulations!! :D I know how good that feels! We just finished the whole series and it only took us six and a half years! :rolleyes: We also did the whole History of the US series along with it, and added in too many (is that possible?) biographies, historical fiction & literature. It was difficult not to spin our wheels in an interesting era! Good luck with Vol. #2! (I think that was officially too many exclamation points!;) )

Hike, hike, hike! DH & I went there together before we were married. We actually started out in S. CA and drove up to Sequoia/Kings Canyon, where we spent a couple of days camping and hiking around to see the sequoias, and did a nice day hike out to a beautiful waterfall. Then we spent a couple of days at Yosemite doing the same thing (Bridalveil Falls, Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, and El Capitan!). We went through San Fransisco and spent a night in a hotel there (not my favorite city - it's too cold and cloudy!). Then we drove through Big Sur back down to S. CA, stopping along the way to do a sunset horseback ride on the beach, rock hop on the coast, eat something at Nepenthe, and go to the beach to see the Sea Lions. It was an incredible trip - like a honeymoon (which is good because we didn't get one after we were married ;) ) I think it took us just over a week to do the whole trip. Well worth the drive!

My dh has had someone use his information to open and run up HUGE bills at Bell South *twice* in Pensacola, where neither of us has ever been. I've contacted the police in Pensacola, but they can't do anything about it because they claim that information like this is exchanged in drug houses where no-one is actually a resident. They could go to the address where the account was set up, but they would never be able to find the person who actually did it. We had to go through the fraud department at Bell South to give proof (fill out a bunch of paperwork and send in some other documents) that we hadn't been residing in Pensacola, nor acquiring phone service there. I'd contact Verizon, American Express, and Washington Mutual and speak with their fraud departments to let them know of the situation, change my phone number, and hope that the calls stop. I wouldn't count on it, though. We have been getting calls for a person who was the previous renter of a house we rented for four years before moving here last summer. We've never met her, she never had our same phone number, and she certainly has nothing to do with our current home (that we bought) or our current phone number (in a different town altogether)! Our only association with her is that she rented a house *five years ago* that we rented after her. :rolleyes:

Toni, I believe Pam is of the used-to-be variety, and really truly is feeling lonely and isolated not knowing how to find a good community of IRL friends outside of a church setting. Maybe it would be helpful to her (and me) to hear about how you find friends IRL, because people I can really relate to IRL are few and far between.

Actually, the White Mountains act as a barrier between the Canadian air mass that we get, and the warm humid air coming up the East Coast that makes weather in the south. When the two air masses collide, we end up with a lot of snow, but also get the nice comfortably cool summers. As a matter of fact, it has been snowing here since Tuesday night, with only a short break yesterday afternoon. The kids have been having a blast sledding down the driveway (not near the road ;) )!

watch movies play board games go sledding or skating work on projects around the house (okay, not fun, but necessary)

I read many studies firsthand while at University, and I do believe there is manmade Global Climate Change going on. Of course the Earth goes through cycles, but not so quickly as we have seen in just our lifetime. There's tons of evidence for it, and lots of "scientists" being paid off by some groups :rolleyes: to say what people want them to say so the propaganda against is coming from "experts".

Like Colleen, my oldest will be an 8th grader next year. We have been talking, tiptoeing really, around the subject of what to do for high school, so this is an interesting conversation for me. Socially, all of the other homeschoolers we know/knew have already put their over-6th-grade kids in school, so I can see this as being a lonely path for us. But public school was a lonely path for me, as it is for many students. For a variety of reasons, I felt "desperately alone, relatively unhappy, and overwhelmed with the task of figuring out what the future holds", even when surrounded by a school full of peers. And in that situation I made some poor choices that have affected the rest of my life. No, I don't think public school is the solution. Does ps provide more opportunity for advancement toward meeting my child's goals in life? That is the question with which I am currently struggling. We do have the opportunity to participate full or part time at two local public schools or full time only at a prep-school "academy". But we also have the opportunity to tailor an education here at home and within the community, without subjecting ourselves to a school calendar and any other nasty things that might come along with a public school setting. Colleen: I'm not sure what the laws are in your state, but I wanted to point out to you that, here in NH anyway, most students do not have the opportunity to bop in and out of high school. If you are a homeschooler entering high school, say junior year, the school district is under *no obligation* to accept and assign credit (toward graduation) for *any* of the prior coursework you have done. This is a do or die situation for us, as I imagine it is for homeschoolers in many states.

I vote for cancel until further notice.