Peaches Makes a Basket

After quitting her job during the recession and going back to school, Yale gives Peaches her diploma.

Congratulations to Peaches with her newly minted Master's of Architecture.

Paperwork Reduction

Happy Tax Day Everyone!

Hope everyone is done and relaxed for the rest of the year now.

I was looking at some of the forms and was struck by the prevalence of the paperwork reduction act notices.  Yes, they've been there for years, but I guess I have too much time on my hands now.

But I was curious so I counted the pieces of paper that are my 2012 returns. 
A whopping 26 pages.

That is both federal and state and to be fair, that 1 page return was when NJ didn't have an income tax. 

How much paper to produce those 26 pages?  88 pieces of paper.  W-2, 1099, charitable donation receipts, etc. etc. 

Whew.  Glad we've reduced all that paper.

Back in the 60s my tax return was a single piece of paper.  True I have investments I didn't have back then and I didn't own a house etc.  This is my 1967 tax return.

That's it.  Eleven pieces of information.  Address is item 1 and my refund is line 11.  Now that's paperwork reduction.

All Fools Day at the White House

Came early this year when the President declared April as National Financial Capability Month on March 29.

I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities to improve their understanding of financial principles and practices

Obama is lecturing me on financial responsibility?  Perhaps he'll teach me how to make and adhere to a budget?

So what's next?

Is John Boehner going to teach me how to use sun block?

Is Debbie Wasserman Schultz going to teach me how to comb my hair?

This is the second year of National Financial Capability Month.  We also had  National Financial Literacy Month in 2010 & 2011.

If you do not have a life, you can read all four:

April 2, 2010	-	2010 National Financial Literacy Month
March 31, 2011	-	2011 National Financial Literacy Month
April 2, 2012	-	2012 National Financial Capability Month
March 29, 2013	-	2013 National Financial Capability Month

So here is what I learned:

The debt at the end of March when each of these proclamations were made:

Year	Total Debt
2010	12,773,123,000,000
2011	14,270,115,000,000
2012	15,582,079,000,000
2013	16,687,289,000,000

So given we had a debt of 11,126,941 000,000 on  March 31 2009, the president called on us to become financially literate while the federal government was racking this sort of debt each year:

Year	Debt Increase	Debt Incr per Person *
2010	1,646,182,000,000	5487.27
2011	1,496,992,000,000	4989.97
2012	1,311,964,000,000	4373.21
2013	1,105,210,000,000	3684.03

* using a rough number of 300,000,000 people

So the federal government has increased the debt for each person in the U.S. by 18534.49.  Yep.  That's almost $20,000 even for your child sleeping in her cradle.

Here it is only 2-April.  I think my financial acumen has really grown.

Just the Gas Ma'am

I was listening to the news on a local radio station this morning

I pricked up my ears when they started talking about gas prices.  Their report stated that gas prices had risen again.  The average was up 11 cents this week.  That made me a little curious as I had bought gas late yesterday and noticed that the price was the same as I had previously paid.

I've recorded every gas purchase I've made for my personal vehicles since the early seventies.  In recent years I've kept a spreadsheet.  Anyway, segue aside, I took a look and found that the current price is at its lowest since over 7 months ago.  As you can see below, I typically buy gas 1 to 2 times a month.

So are the prices so volatile that they are hopping up and down frequently and I'm just not seeing this because I'm not buying every other day?  Or is something else going on?

Just wondering

Here's what I've paid over the last 8 months.  You can see that you have to go back to last May to find cheaper gas.  All fill-ups were at the same gas station except for Nov 5 and July 28 (this one the same brand but different place).

Jan 31, 2013	3.39
Jan 14, 2013	3.39
Jan 08, 2013	3.39
Dec 24, 2012	3.39
Nov 24, 2012	3.59
Nov 05, 2012	3.63
Oct 10, 2012	3.79
Aug 31, 2012	3.67
Aug 08, 2012	3.55
Jul 28, 2012	3.69
Jul 20, 2012	3.45
Jun 20, 2012	3.35
May 12, 2012	3.75

Mommy, I feel sick today

from the New York Times:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suffered a concussion early last week after fainting and striking her head, the State Department disclosed on Saturday.

As a result, she will not testify as scheduled on Thursday before Congressional committees investigating the September attack on the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

. . .

Acting on the advice of her doctors, Mrs. Clinton will not go to the State Department this week but will work from home, the State Department said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/us/politics/hillary-clinton-concussion.html?smid=pl-share

Hmmm

Only a week working at home? 

That leaves about a month left as Secretary of State.  That of course assumes that Obama appoints Kerry to start as soon as his second term starts.  Now Congress might quit for Christmas within a week so I guess Hillary's exposure is only about 2 1/2 weeks.

What will be her excuse when Congress is back in session after the new year?  "My dog ate my testimony"?