Bonus, sort of...

Have you ever heard the phrase "The Lord provides."? Well, I can tell you that He does, I had an extra paycheck show up this week, normally I have direct deposits, and I was paid on the 29th of July as normal, then a few days later I received a check in the mail from the company I work for, it was dated Aug 1, and the hours were slightly different from the one from last pay period, I was pretty weirded out about it, I have received random bonuses before, but never an entire pay period worth of pay. I initially thought they might have duplicated my paycheck, but since the hours were slightly different, I knew that wasn't the case. No matter how I tried to add things up, I couldn't figure out how or why they were giving me this check.

I went into town yesterday, I took the paycheck to the office where my supervisor works, I wanted to find out what it was all about before I deposited it, the company I work for has messed things up before (not in my favor though, and not my supervisor, she is an angel, so is the current office manager) and I didn't want to be accused of accepting a paycheck that I didn't have coming. When I walked through the door, the office manager smiled at me and asked if I had received a surprise... turns out that earlier in the year, I had turned in a bunch of time sheets at the same time, yeah I'm terrible at keeping up with those sorts of things, somehow one of them had gotten mishandled and I never got paid for it and I didn't catch it. They were doing an audit and found the time sheet that I hadn't gotten paid for and sent it in.

I really needed that extra check this time, I am so glad they caught the mistake and took care of it, I'm also glad that I checked it before depositing it, that makes me look good to them, honest, and being a caretaker I need to be seen as honest, too many caretakers steal from the people they take care of, I just found out about another lady I know whose family member received the same service from the same company, she discovered a bunch of money missing from her bedroom, she can't prove it was her caretaker or exactly when it happened, but that is the only other person who comes to her house. I am an honest person, to a fault, so anytime I can prove it to the company without a doubt is a good thing. And besides, if I hadn't talked to them and just sent the check in, I would have worried about it, worried that it might have been a mistake and eventually they might have caught it and thought badly of me for taking it. Now I have a clear conscience and a bigger bank account. :) I also keep up with my time sheets better, and turn them in on time.



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Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Taxes, done...

I just filed my taxes, this year was much simpler than last year, and last year was pretty simple, anyhoo, without giving away TMI, I have filed with TurboTax in the past, I used the free form, but for some reason this year, it kept bumping me from the free to the deluxe, that's a step above their first tier pay service, I believe they were trying to charge me about $30, the first tier is only $20, but either way I should have qualified for the free one, I have a very VERY simple return. No matter what I did, it wouldn't allow me to do the free one or even downgrade to the first tier, so I deleted my info and hopped over to H&R Block, it took me all of 5 minutes to fill in my info and process the return.

My only complaint about them is after you file, they pop you into this screen that asks for permission for something, it looks all official, it appears very similar to something over at TurboTax that is required for them to process your return. It turned out that what they were asking me to sign was permission to give my info to 3rd parties for marketing purposes, things like credit card companies and financial services. It wasn't until I got to the bottom of the page did I read that this wasn't required for my tax return, I quickly went back and deleted my info and clicked on "I disagree", they sent me to 2 more pages like that, then took me to a page asking me for my opinion of the site, how easy it was and such. I would have given them a top review except for the last part, I wonder how many people are fooled into thinking they need to fill in the form giving consent, thinking they are giving consent relating to their tax return when in reality they are telling H&R Block to share their personal info with 3rd party financial institutions? I told 'em about it too, they ask what it would take to give them a better score, I gave them an 8 out of 10 on everything, they would have gotten 10s if it weren't for their little stunt at the end.

I used to get pre-approved credit apps in the mail all the time, heck one credit card company sent me a real card with a $5000 credit limit (unrequested), that scared me, what if that card had gotten lost or stolen before it showed up in my mailbox? I would have never even known about it until it showed up on my credit report later... I did some research and found a way to stop all of those pre-approved credit apps from being sent, go to this site https://www.optoutprescreen.com and fill it out, I did it and it stopped all of it. Don't have any credit cards, don't want any credit cards, they are too risky, it's too tempting to use them, better to go without.

Now, here's hoping that the fed doesn't have to print up some play money for my return. I asked for a direct deposit on my return, nothing personal against my mail carrier, she is nice, but things happen, I am always getting someone elses mail, and other people get mine, since I live in such a small community, it usually gets resolved in short order, BUT, I did find my W2 form in my friend's mailbox, her box is 2 above mine, we were there at the same time, fortunately she looked at her mail before we left and handed me my mail.

I noticed a new "credit" on my return, I know about earned income credit, that's for low income people (that's me), now they have one called a "make work" credit, I still don't understand what that is all about, I did my own work, I didn't need the government to make a job for me, but it seems that I qualify for whatever reason, so I got it.

Now I wait to see if uncle big brother accepts my return, then I wait for the money to appear.




All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Dreaming...

Ahhhh, decisions, decisions... I still haven't located my digital camera, I know I have it packed away in a box that is in the middle of a pile of boxes that is sitting outside, wrapped in heavy builder's plastic and wire, it is battened down against the sun, wind, dust, rain and hopefully animals. The problem is, each time we have disassembled this package to get things out, it is nearly impossible to put things back, the plastic is becoming more and more brittle, things get disturbed and the boxes become less able to protect our stuff. We have done this once or twice in the time we have been here, the next time we break into the package needs to be the last time. We will need a place to put all of this stuff because I don't think we will be able to leave pack it back up and leave it out again. This means waiting until Bob is finished working on the cabin so that we will have a place to put all of this stuff and get it out of the elements.

I thought I found the box the camera could have been in, I found the accessories for the camera, but not the camera, bummer! So I have been looking for alternatives, I have found a probable replacement. This is an all in one, MP4 player with video (and still) camera. This device would allow me to snap pix and record videos (wiping drool off chin), it also records audio. It has a touch screen viewer so I could see the images and/or videos I take. It is a MP3 music player, MP4 video player, video camera, still camera, and digital audio recorder, it has 8 GB of internal memory, expandable with mini-SD memory (up to 2 GB). Here is the device in question

The thing that is holding me back is the money, now don't get me wrong, the price is really right, it's actually very inexpensive for what it is. In my "old life" I wouldn't think twice about dropping this amount on something like this, but now that I living my new life, well lets just say that it might take me a month to scrape up this much cash. I just emailed the company to ask them for clarification about the frames per second, I expect to hear back from them in a day or so. They have the model listed above, and they have an upgraded model, the difference being the amount of internal memory. While studying the two, I noticed on their site that the 8GB model states that it records 30 FPS for the video, the upgraded 16 GB model states that it records 10 FPS, this makes no sense to me, everything else is the same (except for the memory), I am hoping they made a mistake with the more expensive one and it is really 30 FPS, not the other way around, that is a huge difference for video recording.

Well, you know what they say about wishing for things, "Wish with one hand and sh*t in the other and see which one gets filled quickest"... now, I can't say that is entirely true, I have received and achieved some amazing things, I believe in planting seeds for the future and it has worked for me pretty well, so I'm planting positive seeds now, life is good!

Happy Easter everyone!
Time to get to bed, it's getting late. :)

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Wretha

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