Recent Posts

I am a shameful TV lover. My favorites that I watch every week these days:

House
Bones
Chuck
24
Burn Notice
Battlestar Galactica (I have yet to watch the last 2 of the series; I've been saving it)
Lost
NCIS
Fringe
Dollhouse
Lie to Me

to name a few .... I loved Crusoe and was really disappointed they canceled it. Wow, I think I watch way too much TV...

Favorites from the good ole days:

X-Files
Friends
I Love Lucy
Happy Days
The Wonder Years

Thank goodness I don't get cable; it'd be such a time and brain suck.

I love WP plug-ins and think I have too many. I'm using most of the plug-ins on ProBlogger's list. A few of my favorites/others I use:

• All in one SEO Pack
• cForms
• Google XML Sitemap
• Headspace 2 for easy tagging
• Evermore
• Co-Author because I often collaborate with my sister
• Posts by Author
• ©Feed to display copyright info because of content scrapers
• Ask Apache Password Protect

Hi everyone,

My name is Penelope and I live in California with my sister and 2 Border Collie dogs Ludwig and Wolfgang (named after Beethoven and Mozart, 2 of our favorite composers. Ludwig is mine, Wolfgang my sister's), and we own a small pet and horse costuming business together (Franga Designs).

I majored in music for 2 years in college - 1 year voice, 1 year piano - but switched to an interdisciplinary degree (B.A.) in Linguistics, Spanish, French, German and Chinese in my Junior year, and ended up getting a minor in music. I play the piano, sing, compose a little and am teaching myself to play the violin.

I love to read, watch movies (especially period films, and in particular Jane Austen films), play Euro strategy games like Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne, work on my websites and blog, Pecuniarities.

I look forward to getting to know everyone here and hope to learn some things as well as can contribute here.

I've thought about getting an ING account many times in the past year, but for some reason, it just doesn't feel as secure.

I've had a savings account with my local credit union for almost 3 years now, and while the rates aren't as high as ING's, they are higher than other banks like Bank of America, and it feels more secure and "close by." I can make immediate internal transfers to my checking account with online banking, so I can keep my money in savings right up to the time I need to pay a bill. Plus, the minimum required balance is low at $25 and there is no limit on withdrawal, so in case of an emergency and I need to take out a large amount, I don't have to worry about penalities.

I try to automate and pay online whenever I can, but like Simply Forties, I live in a pretty small town and water and gas have to be walk-in, mail-in or by phone. I always try to pay bills with a credit card (Amazon rewards) to earn points or cash back.

• Credit Card: Manually online each month
• Cable (internet): Auto charge credit card
• Cell phone: Auto charge credit card
• Electric: Manually via electronic withdrawal at the SCE website
• Mortgage: Manually via electronic withdrawal at the IndyMac and CitiMortgage websites
• Insurance (auto & home): Automatic debit
• Gas: Phone w/ credit card
• Water: Phone w/ credit card
• Taxes (income, property, sales tax): Mail in check b/c convenience fees to pay by credit card are exorbitant!

Well, we used a CPA for the first time last year, and I still recommend it, but I did a "dry run" a few weeks ago and found that we'd be owing about $3,300. I couldn't stomach paying another $225 on top of that.

The silver lining is that last year, the CPA told us we'd have to withhold more than our employers were withholding for us, and his estimate was spot on.

I used TaxAct Online, and e-filed for $10, and used Pay1040.com to charge the tax bill to my credit card (the one that I pay off each month). We had saved enough last year, so I immediately made a payment for the same amount to the credit card.

Using Pay1040 meant a convenience fee of between $80 and $90. But I'm getting about $60 cash back from the credit card, and having the money in a savings account all year earned us a little over $33 in interest. So it didn't really cost anything.

The only bill I have on a auto-pay sort of thing is my electric bill.  Haven't had any trouble with it until recently.  It's due on the 4th or 5th.  Last month, though, they took out about 1/2 of the total due on the 22nd of the previous month and then the balance of the bill on the 4th or 5th as scheduled.  Weird.  Good thing I had that money in there or it would have been a major disaster.  I only found out about when I was reconciling my bank statement.

Do you guys prefer bill pa or auto debit? I like bill pay for the majority of our bills. My mom has been burned by companies who took a different amount than agreed.

You do have to pay your estimated tax by April 15 to avoid penalty on the unpaid portion of the tax.  The penalty is fairly small and I just absorb it.  Hopefully this will be the last year I have to do that, too!

I use the vendor's website to pay online manually.  Most of them have one but a few don't.