tax return

TAX RETURN


In case you were getting tired of me rehashing six month old articles I’ve decided to give you a treat today and do my once a year tax return article. Some of you are typical middle class worker drone Yuppies, although for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why you would be reading this site rather than Survival Blog, rather than lower case worker drones, and you might be waiting for April 15th to file in the vain hope that in six months inflation will soften the blow on how much you owe the government on taxes. I think the average half way intelligent worker figures out how much of their own money they can keep without owing the IRS anything at the end of the year and adjusts their withholding amount accordingly. They keep as much as they can each paycheck and get almost nothing back. I let the government have all they want , borrowing my money at zero percent interest. I file 0 on my withholding. To me it serves two purposes. One, I never have to fear paying at the end of the year. Even a hundred bucks is not something I want to rape my savings for. Two, it is another savings account. I have the discipline to save the money. I dipped into my hundred dollar bill stash three years later to help move up to Elko ( I had enough from cashing in my vacation and my last pay check [and that was after paying ahead two weeks on my child support] until I had to replace all the truck and trailer tires ). The bills were old enough to start molding. I just like a variety of savings.

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In past years I’ve saved half my return and invested the other half. The first half goes to the coming years kids birthdays and Christmas, plus the automobile insurance fees to come. The second half I buy preparedness items. I buy those monthly, but the tax return is for bigger ticket items. One year I bought my rimfire arsenal, a semi-auto rifle ( with a tube mag, although now I wish I’d gone with a single shot ) and about eight thousand rounds of ammo. Another year it was around eight thousand rifle primers and some powder. Or it is books normally too expensive, such as one years purchase of the complete set of the Foxfire books ( do not buy the second half which are worthless for skills, just one through six ). In the past I’ve bought hundreds of rounds of current manufacture ammo. Last winter I kept buying bags of corn until now I can barely get into the Hippie Bread Van. I also splurged and bought the $150 TV ( 7 inch digital only using 13 watts ). Of course a year later it is now $75, and it was no where near a prep necessity. But all apocalypse planning and no play makes Jim a very dull boy. My main point is that none of this money is usually wasted or spent frivolously. I had enough of that with wife #2. The two of us making $25k a year, or her making $35k, it didn’t matter. She is always broke with nothing to show for it except rent and car bills. And a huge ass showing how many restaurants her meals came from. Anyway, before I get myself worked up into a lather, here is how this years return is going to get invested.

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I thought long and hard about it and decided to pay off my second lot of land. It is a fifty percent increase in the distance from town as the one I’m on so I won’t live on it commuting daily to work. But it is half the distance of my long ago paid off lot ten miles east of town ( and then five miles north on very bad roads ). That lot is why I moved here. In case the economy crashed, I had a ten buck a year tax bill and no rent. The lot down the road from here is my “looking for a job” lot. It allows me to still work but have no rent. Needless to say, it would be a part time job as there is no way I’d pedal from there five days a week. This June my child support cuts in half, and if I become unemployed and must move to avoid rent I can work for a lot less. I need 40 hours a week now ( to keep up with my required ten percent net book buying ), but in case of the worse I’ll then only need to work 20 hours a week. If I pay off that lot now with my tax return. This is not perfect, I would like to get to the point where writing pays the bills and I work zero hours a week in town. But it does still give me much more flexibility in a decaying economy. And by the by, the twenty hours a week assumes none of my other bills change. I keep up with my wasteful habits such as hauling water by truck rather than bike and I keep eating meat most of the nights of the week. And spend $2.50 a week washing clothes in the Laundromat.

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Certain other blog authors snort about those people that tell you what they eat for dinner in their writing. Of course those same authors get advertisers to pay for submitted articles. Plus instead of allowing comments, they post the comments as articles. Those are blog editors, not blog authors. They have little cause for scorn because they ain’t writers. Very good editors, piss poor writers. I submit to you that since some of you are living vicariously through me ( but not through the winter in my trailer, damn you ), these personal details interest you. They give you a sample of how to do things. Perhaps not the best way, but one way. If I can keep two of us alive on minimum wage, with prep buying and wasting lots of money on books, anyone can afford to do the same. I’m not bragging, because I’m sitting at my keyboard writing in 46 degrees. With three sweaters and my snow boots on. You are reading in 83 degrees. But I have a grand to piss away, which is almost two months take home pay. I’ll take the cold. At least for now. One day I’ll write this from my underground Unibomber liar.

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What are you doing with your tax return to increase your future security?

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Parden me, I had to take #4 into a doctors appointment Thursday.  I only worked a few hours and am a bit behind on mail and comments.  Please bear with me.