The Happy Rock is coming up on its one year anniversary, and I am ready to make some changes. I have learned a lot in the last year, both personally and with regards to business and running a website. It has been a great journey. With my MBA complete, I have some more time to devote to my side endevears. The $10,000 question becomes, “what should I put my effort into?”. I have a list of about 25 projects and business opportunities that I have stored up over the last 2 and a half years and The Happy Rock is [...]
Read MoreApril 2008
Well, the results are in from the CPA vs. Turbo Tax and other DYI tax programs fight. The winner is………quality professional tax preparation by a landslide. Here is the break down: My CPA isn’t responsible for all of the savings, but the service was definitely worth the cost. First, we tuck away 40% of The Happy Rockette’s paycheck, so we knew we had more than enough for our 2007 taxes. We were expecting a bill of around $4,000 dollars between federal and state. One big difference was that we made about $6,000 less than 2006. I didn’t work any overtime [...]
Read MoreFirst things first, making bi-monthly payments on your mortgage WILL cut your mortgage repayment time down significantly. Using bi-monthly payments on a $200,000 mortgage at 6.0% you will have the mortgage paid off 6 years early and save about $50,000 in interest. What happens is that you are paying 26 bi-monthly payments which is the same as 13 monthly payments. In essence you are paying one more monthly payment a year. If bi-monthly payments can save you a lot of money, then why do I mention them as a myth? Well, most of the programs that banks offer their lenders [...]
Read MoreOur two year Verizon cell phone contract finally ran out on the 25th of March! It feels great to break free from the chains of a long contract. I haven’t yet canceled the phone, but I did order and activate a new Virgin Mobile prepaid phone for the Rockette. She is s a low minute user like me. Previously I had talked about how much I would save with Virgin Mobile and how to set up a Virgin Mobile account, so I thought it would be helpful to revisit my decision. It has been about 6 months, and I have [...]
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