Frustration Trying to File My Personal Income Tax Return This Year

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I have used Turbotax to file my tax return both Federal and State since 2013 and been happy with it. This year is a new ball game mainly because of new identification requirements set up by the IRS.

I got all my tax information together, the 1099INT from the bank with the interest on it earned in 2022, the 1098 Form from our home mortgage company with the property tax and interest paid information, Form 1099 Composite from Stash where I had investments during the year, Form 1099 R for retirement money paid to me during the year, Form SSA-1099 for me and one for my wife for Social Security paid to us during the year, and contribution statements from the two Churches we attended during the year. In addition to this information, I prepared comprehensive financial statements for the casual used golf cart business I ran the last five months of 2021 requiring a Schedule C be filed.

I went through the whole process on Turbotax answering all the questions they had. Turbotax starts out by telling a person how long they think it will take for them to complete the return. The time estimate for me was 4 hours and 30 minutes. The program ran all the checks on both the Federal and State returns and found one question I needed to answer. Then Turbotax told me which version of their software I needed to use to complete this return and how much it cost, $112 for the Federal, and $49 for the State. It asks if you want to pay from your refund or by credit card. I chose to pay by credit card. Turbotax congratulated me and stated that I had completed the return in two hours and twenty minutes far ahead of the national average.

Then it asks do you want to file electronically or on paper by mail? I always have filed electronically. When I made this choice that is when all Hell broke lose.

They tell you for the 2022 return you must complete an identification process. The first step in the process is tell us what your adjusted gross income on your 2021 tax return was? I have a new computer and downloaded all my previous tax returns onto a memory bank. When I went to the memory bank and clicked on my last year’s return it ask me how do you want to open it file? Windows 11 does not have the right software to open it. I could not find anything program that would open that file. Turbotax says not to worry click on this IRS link that takes you to ID.me to verify who you are. So, that is what I did. ID.me asks you to get your smart phone and use the camera to take a photo of the back and the front of your driver’s license, but not to use your camera use the software link that comes up on the screen from the link ID.me texts you. That took a while and several retakes and adjustments, but I finally got the photos to ID.me. Then they say you are not through yet “You need to take selfie on your phone using the ID.me software that has an elongated oval in the center of the phone screen. I played with that for a while and it came up with multiple messsages, “You are not close enough lay your phone on a table bend over it look into the oval center your face”. All I saw was black lines that look like long hairs and it is an outline of my head. ID.me says, You are not close enough maybe if your nose was right on the screen.” I tried two or three times and it said they were not getting my photo. I decided this must be a scam or a joke. I Googled Id.me and apparently it is an arm of the IRS. There are lots of negative comments out there about this truly non-functional software. I AM JUST GOING TO SEND MY RETURN IN ON PAPER THIS YEAR

Well today is another day, I decided to follow through on the ID.me system and see if I could get to efile my return. It took about six tries and authorization numbers before ID.me accepted my photos taken on their system with my phone. Then came the “Selfie” phase where you need to put your face in the oval. It really is just showing a bunch of black lines where your face is looking into the phone. It came back with messages we cannot see your whole face get closer, and even said I was too close once. But after about eight tries it finally shifted to another screen so I guess they liked my Selfie. Then I had to set up a pen for the eFile for each of us, and a Credit Karma password for the tax return tracking and finally got to the “E-file” button for the Federal and then the Arizona. MY RETURNs ARE NOW IN THE HANDS OF THE GODS.

2022 Tax Brackets for Your Family Budget Calculations

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2022-2023 tax brackets and federal income tax rates

Tax Rate Single filers Married filing
jointly or qualifying
surviving spouse Married filing
separately Head of household
10% $0 to $10,275 $0 to $20,550 $0 to $10,275 $0 to $14,650
12% $10,276 to $41,775 $20,551 to $83,550 $10,276 to $41,775 $14,651 to $55,900
22% $41,776 to $89,075 $83,551 to $178,150 $41,776 to $89,075 $55,901 to $89,050
24% $89,076 to $170,050 $178,151 to $340,100 $89,076 to $170,050 $89,051 to $170,050
32% $170,051 to $215,950 $340,101 to $431,900 $170,051 to $215,950 $170,051 to $215,950
35% $215,951 to $539,900 $431,901 to $647,850 $215,951 to $323,925 $215,951 to $539,900
37% $539,901 or more $647,851 or more $323,926 or more $539,901 or more

STANDARD DEDUCTION TABLE
Filing Status

2022 Standard Deduction

Single; Married Filing Separately

$12,950

Married Filing Jointly; Surviving Spouse

$25,900

Head of Household

$19,400

If you’re at least 65 years old or blind, you can claim an additional standard deduction of $1,400 in 2022 ($1,750 if you’re claiming the single or head of household filing status). If you’re both 65 or older and blind, the additional deduction amount is doubled.

The IRS and TurboTax offer free versions of filing a person’s Federal Income Tax Form for 2022 if the only thing you have is W-2 forms and do not intend to itemize your deductions. Otherwise, if you want to file your 2022 Federal and State returns yourself, I would suggest you select the appropriate TurboTax version for your situation. There are three main versions for individuals depending on what your return needs to include. TurboTax Deluxe if only W-2’s, interest income, dividend income, and you can itemize or take the standard deduction. TurboTax Premier for those that have stock transactions, rental income and other sources of income that do not require itemizing like a business. The third version is TurboTax Home and Business that allows you to file a schedule C for Business Income no matter how small your business or rental income might be. In general allows virtually anything an individual might need to report as far as W-2, 1099, and business income.

TurboTax is available on a CD or on line. Since many new personal computers do not have a port for a CD, most people choose the on line versions. If you can do your income tax yourself you can save a pretty good chunk of money. TurboTax ranges from about $60 to $150 depending on what version you buy. There are also TurboTax versions for Partnerships and Corporations.

Good luck in filing your 2022 tax return by the due date Tuesday April 18,2023.

Begin Including In Your Family Budget Insurance And Investments

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The sooner that a family begins planning for the future which should include life insurance, 401-k’s, 403b’s if eligible, or Fed 457 programs, they will be better prepared for retirement. It is shocking that so many people do not recognize the necessity of Life Insurance. If a person purchases life insurance when they are in their 20’s or even 30’s, the premiums are surprisingly affordable. When I sold life insurance it was very difficult to get people in their 20’s to even discuss life insurance , they considered the salesman totally interested in making money for themselves. Term life insurance policies are very inexpensive. A person can have live insurance with a million dollar benefit for less than $100 a month if they begin before they are thirty years old. If they are in their 30’s when they begin a term life insurance program they can still have a fairly high benefit amount. If a person waits until they are in their forties the premiums are higher and the benefit is lower. Insurance sales people will sometimes try to convince a person to buy whole life policies which means you pay the premiums your whole life and they accumulate cash surrender value. A lessor amount of insurance is affordable if a person buys whole life and even with the cash value it is generally not a good investment. One of the sales pitches is that you can borrow against a whole life policy cash value. If a person borrows on their whole life policy, they pay interest and at some point are supposed to pay the money borrowed back to the insurance company to restore the original cash value accumulation. Most people that borrow from their insurance policies do not attempt to pay back the money they borrowed.

The premium costs saved by purchasing term life insurance could be used to systematically purchase mutual funds that will accumulate through the years and be available for major purchases such as a home or for retirement. Most of the time those funds should be used for retirement because the person may have to pay income taxes at current rate and possibly a penalty for early withdrawal. This applies if the funds come from a 401-k program of they choose to cash some or all of this money in before retirement age. A person may still have to pay income tax in the tax deferred portion and earnings of a retirement program when they retire, but there will not be a penalty charged under current tax law.

By all means a person should participate in 401-K, 403-b or 457 programs to the maximum offered or the maximum they can afford at the time. It is important that a person study the funds offered and discuss with their broker or agent the goals and timeframe that each fund is designed to accomplish. There are times when it is necessary to get out of a particular fund because of diminished performance and go to another fund. Keep informed on what your funds are doing and ask your adviser their opinion concerning needed changes.

Small business owners, like mom and pop operations, that have to set up their own retirement and investment programs should set up a 401-K and may want to select Roth plans so the taxes are paid as you go on the investments made. Likewise they should purchase life insurance on the main income earner and possibly a smaller amount of life insurance on person that is not working or contributing considerbly less to the family income.

Good luck planning as a family what is necessary to provide for your family not only now but for the extended future.

Your Family Budget And a Suggestion of How to Supplement it with Photos of Properties

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When a person decides they want to purchase a home or property, the financing entity usually requires a “Broker’s Price Opinion” or a full appraisal by a licensed appraiser. The “Broker’s Price Opinion” or BPO as it is commonly called is where you come in. Many real estate agents do not have time to go chasing around to take photos of what an agent calls “Comps”. So, they hire someone with a good digital camera or a phone with great photography ability to go out to the addresses they will furnish you with. Most BPO’s require photos of three properties of similar structure and lot size within close proximity that have sold within the last year. The photo person must be able to take good clear photos of those properties, three additional properties of similar size and lot size that are currently listed within a defined geographical area will need to be photographed. Usually six photos is all that is required for a BPO.

How do you find out about where these properties are located. Go to a real estate agency that has a record of selling and buying a lot of properties and ask if they need someone to take photos for their listings of for people asking them to establish a listing value for their property which could include a BPO? Also ask if they farm out the exterior and interior photos for properties being listed. Go to a bank or real estate financing company and find out if they farm out photos for the properties they are planning on financing that will have BPO’s?

There is another aspect when dealing with Real Estate agents, some of them farm out listing brochure compositions for the properties they have listed. The person would be asked to prepare a one or two page brochure to be put in a box outside the property for people driving by the properties. There would be several photos and graphics explaining the home and it usually includes the price but not always.

Another job real estate agents do not like to do themselves is take an agency sign out and dig a hole and put a stake in to mount the “For Sale” sign. Then after the sale they need someone to go get the sign or if the listing has expired the sign needs to be collected.

Sometimes the real estate agent themselves pay for these services or in some cases the agency pays for multiple agents. Keep in mind there may be a large number of agents in an agency but you need to deal with the those too busy to perform these duties.

There is usually a tight time frame to get the photos, they may need them within a matter of hours or two or three days. If you are asked to take interior photos for a listing or brochure you would generally have to coordinate with the occupant if the property is occupied as to when you can perform those duties.

if you like photography you will love the jobs associated with the loan and real estate business. I audited real estate appraisals for several years for properties in all fifty states.

Your Family Budget And Setting Priorities

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Certainly Food , gasoline, and your financial obligations for housing and committed payments take priority. Just recently it has been mentioned that the United States only has a five week supply of diesel fuel. Diesel Fuel is necessary for the whole trucking industry and many other industrial uses. At a press conference John Brennan, a spokesman for the State Department was ask “Is there a plan to deal with the fact that we will be out of diesel fuel in five weeks?” His response was “There is no current plan to deal with the diesel fuel shortage, but we will be working on it. Well, this is a week later still no announced plan has been disclosed to deal with the shortage of diesel fuel.

What can we anticipate will happen if the United States runs out of diesel fuel? First and foremost all the trucking transportation system would come to a halt. No more Safeway, Prime, Walmart, and other supply trucks on the highway system, as we drive them. Grocery stores will not get their shipments and the shelves will again be bare in many places throughout the store. Transportation of gasoline to the filling stations would cease we would not have fuel to get to work.

Probably people would still have water in their homes, but staple food items would be in short supply or not available. Jessie Kelly on “The First TV network on Pluto TV” is advertising food packages for survival in the event of a food shortage. Several talk show hosts on TV have mentioned the diesel fuel shortage and encourage people to stock up on staple food items in the event our transportation system comes to a halt.

Responding to the warnings and apparent lack of a plan to deal with the diesel fuel shortage, we have stocked up on flour, sugar, beans, and a number of canned food items. It is costly to stock up with the increase in current inflationary financial climate. Many people are having to try to find supplementary sources of income to deal with the high prices for everything.

One thing I stumbled onto was buying and selling golf carts. A neighbor was moving and had an older golf cart for sale for $1500. I ask my wife if she would like a golf cart, she emphatically said “No we don not need one.” Just about everyone in our 55 and over housing area and the RV park less than a mile from us has a golf cart. A week later the neighbor dropped the price of the golf cart to $1,000, I again approached my wife and the answer was the same, “No”. The day my neighbor was moving to Florida I went by to see him and he said he was going to have a neighbor try to sell the golf cart for $1,000 and was going to pay them a commission. I casually said, “I will pay you $750 for the cart.” He said , “Cash?” I said I will go home and get the cash and be back in a few minutes. I got the cash took it to the neighbor and drove home in the golf cart. My wife still did not want to have a golf cart, so I advertised it on Craigslist and Offerup for $1150 and sold it the next day. I realized at that point there is a big demand for used golf carts in the area of Arizona where we live. I started looking at golf carts on Craigslist and decided to buy a cart for $1800 that looked like a good deal. I did not have a way to haul carts, so I called a cart hauler advertised on Craigslist to pick up the cart. The hauler charged $120, I now had $1920 invested in the cart.

It was a Hyundai golf cart, I placed it on Craigslist and Offerup for $2500 and sold it for $2400, a $480 profit. Since that time only three months ago , I have had 14 golf carts and have sold eleven of them. I have a large garage that will hold four carts, so I keep them concealed. It is against the rules of the HOA to have a business within the Wildhorse community. To get around the no business rule, there is a desert area next to a busy highway near us, I take my cart with a for sale sign, that includes tabs with my phone number, lookers can pull the tab off and call me. Several carts were sold from roadside lookers. I physically go the location of the cart and handle the transaction there. There is also a large RV park, with 557 spaces, only 3/4 of a mile from my home. They have a bulletin board for items for sale, I put a flyer about my carts on the bulletin board and have sold three from that source. The other sales came from ads on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and Offerup. I have lost money on two carts that I did not personally go see. I sent the money with the hauler on those carts and took the word of the seller that they were in excellent shape and they were not when I got them. I plan to continue to try to sell a couple of carts a month to supplement my income. The demand will decrease when most of the “Snowbirds” have arrived for the winter here in Arizona from all over the United States and Canada.

I am sure there are other businesses that you can explore by buying things on Craigslist and reselling them using free ads.

Budgeting For Your Family In The Event of Unexpected Effects of the Current Economy

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The news has not covered extensively what China is doing with their currency. As I understand it the China Monetary system is based on exchange rates to the dollar. As recent as last week they closed the banks for a few days or maybe longer to change their currency. The “Yuan” which is China’s currency has had the value against the dollar declining for several months. China has closed over 1200 branch banks because so many people in China bank on line. After the most recent interest hike by the United States the Yuan has continued to decline. Many banks that are still operating in China closed temporarily last week but have not reopened resulting in riots throughout China because of the closings. It is hard to determine if this will have a significant affect on the U.S. dollar, but it is possible that it will. Some banking people have expressed fear at some point the U.S. monetary system will have to change how the dollar is backed or even possibly establish a new currency. If something this drastic occurred, is your family ready to not have a bank for a few days or weeks, not have use of your credit card for a few days or weeks, or possibly have to replace all your credit with a new system which could hurt families monetarily.

Some of our friends have shared the idea that they are stashing cash at home that they would normally put in their bank account so they have a cash supply in event the U.S. banks were to close for a period of teme. . Another rule many people follow,with the gasoline situation questionable, is to never let your vehicle’s fuel level get below half a tank. What if stations were so jammed you could not get to a pump or the stations were running out of fuel at the pump?

With all the nuclear talk by Russia and uncertainty around the world, families need to prepare for the worst. What if the water supply to your home is interrupted for days, do you have drinking water for the family. It is a good idea to buy a number of cases of water or water in gallon of larger containers to make it easier for cooking. Stock up on your favorite canned foods and have a rotation system in your pantry so you are using the oldest items first. Purchase energy bars and nutrition bars that can keep a person alive for several days if they have nothing else but water. The food is expensive but there are companies on line that you can access and order dried pre-prepared food in protective containers for emergency use. The survival food companies have charts that show how long a person would have adequate food with their various options.

Does your family have a supply of dependable flashlights and batteries in the event of extended power outages? If your family was to lose their heat or air conditioning what would your family do. If it is cold weather a family would need warm clothing and possible a place to build a fire outside. That would require a wood or pellet supply. If you live in Arizona and it is 118 degrees where could your family go to escape the heat in the event there was no electricity?

Your family should have several AM FM battery operated radios so they could get warning messages on local station. Several sets of walkie talkies would enable your family to communicate with each other for several miles if you were separated. Arm identification like they have in the hospital is used a lot in crisis situations so people know who they are particularly children.

Set up a family meeting and discuss a lot of these scenarios and set up a plans for your family

How To Save Money On Your Family Budget for Television

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First of all the cost of smart TV’s has declined a lot in recent years. I would recommend a smart TV if you do not already have one. As an example at Walmart they have several different brands to choose from. For example if you wanted a 55 inch Toshiba it is currently selling for $358, an RCA 55 inch is $298, a Visio sells for about $378. An Ensign TV sells for less than the name brands but the sound is not nearly as quality as the name brands, so I would recommend getting a name brand TV. I have a Toshiba smart TV and love it.

If you have Dish Satellite TV or Direct TV, you are probably paying about $140 a month for the 80 channel package and more than that if you have their largest package. We cancelled dish and went with a different set up and are saving a lot monthly.

The smart TV’s have a Roku built in so you do not need to buy one. If you do not have a smart TV and your TV has an extra HDMI input, then you can buy a Roku for about $30 at Amazon or Ebay. We subscribe to Sling which offers two packages having about 40 channels each. If you watch Fox News one package has that along with the other thirty plus channels. If you like the ESPN channels the other package has that. Each package costs $30 a month or if you have both of them it costs $50 a month. We have Netflix for movies. Also we have Amazon Prime so that entitles you to their Amazon Prime TV package which has lots of free movies and recent movies that can be rented on line. I have MLB TV which allows me to watch any MLB baseball game for the pre-season and regular season , plus the post season, for $129 a year.

We have an outside antenna that cost about $100 which provides us with the local channels at no cost. I just disconnected the Dish from the satellite dish and hooked the antenna to that coaxial cable. There were two TV’s connected to Dish and I now get the local channels on both TV’s. The only cost for those channels is the antenna. We get about 42 channels on the antenna among them, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox local.

On the smart TV you have a choice of a number of AP’s that provide even more channels many of them free. For example there are over 100 free channels on Pluto TV. There are movies, and networks that only appear on Pluto TV. For example “The First” is a great network that Bill O’Reilly originated, he is on each week day on that network. I watch “I’m Right” that follows O’Reilly with Jessie Kelly, it is great. Following that is Buck Sexton that has conservative views, he also is the person that fills the time spot on the radio that Rush Limbaugh was on. All this is free on Pluto TV. You just need to go to the Ap’s on your smart TV and add it to the selection that will appear on you main screen.

If we add the cost of doing your family TV in this manner let’s see how much you can save. Let’s say you just choose the Orange Sling Package, that would be $30, Netflix is $12.95, Prime is about $12 a month(it costs about $139 paid annually). Allocating the cost of antenna over a year , it would cost less than $10 a month. So your monthly cost is now only less than $65 a month.

Let’s say you have both Sling packages the Orange and the Blue at a cost of $50 a month, MLB baseball at a cost of less than $12 a month(paid annually $129) Netflix $13, Prime $12, and the antenna $10, the total monthly cost would be $97 a month. Quite a savings from $140 a month I used to pay.

Give it a try and save lots of money and have even more flexibility than you have with Dish or Direct TV.

Changing Your Family Budget Income Sources

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Since COVID-19 many people have lost or changed jobs or are still unemployed many by choice. There are many jobs available in most parts of the United States that pay over $20 an hour which used to be considered a good salary rate. Now that the minimum wage has been raised in many states it is not uncommon to see big placards in the windows of business saying “Now Hiring” pay $15 an hour to $24 an hour.
Many of those places are fast food restaurants. Drug chains are looking for cashiers and assistants. Retail stores are looking for cashiers and stockers. Costco, Walmart, and Sam’s are looking for employees in all areas. Amazon is looking for help in the warehouses, drivers for their Prime vans, and administrative offices. Call Centers are looking for employees to take reservations and answer questions concerning their products.

If you want to work at home, there are many choices for the call center positions advertised.

You can start building a business at home using Craigslist in your area as a product source and a place to sell the products you buy. Offerup also offers a place to find items to sell and a place to sell them. One of the good things about Offerup is that allows the potential buyers to make an offer if they do not like the price the product is listed for.

I explained in a previous post how to set up and buy and sell bicycles in your area. My experience recently has been that the market for used bicycles has all but dried up since COVID-19 and some of the chain stores are offering bicycles at a relatively reasonable price. Although the new bicycles are almost all made in China and the quality is not always good. For example a Roadmaster brand bicycle sold by Walmart is the worst bike that was ever manufactured. They do not work well and they are uncomfortable. They are cheaply priced but they still are not worth the money. It is like throwing the money down the drain. I tried to make from $25 to $50 on each bicycle I bought for resale. Obviously, I was not going to get rich and it did take time and money to go get the bike.

Now I am buying one golf cart at a time and reselling it with ads on Craigslist and Offerup. I bought one two weeks ago for $750 from a guy that offered the cart at his garage sale for $1500, a week later he dropped the price to $1000 for an EZGO 1981 model golf cart with batteries three years old(Batteries usually last about five years if water is kept in the cells). I noticed he was getting ready to move right away in fact he was leaving later in the day I approached him. I ask how much he would take for the golf cart, he said he was asking $1000 and had contacted a neighbor to sell it for him because he was moving to Florida. He said one guy offered him $500 for it. I said I will give you $750 right now. His reply surprised me, “I can do that “. I went home got the money and paid him for it. I had never driven a golf cart before, he had to show me how it worked. I put an ad on Craigslist in Phoenix and Offerup that night. My ad had the golf cart for $1150. A fellow came the next day and bought the cart for $1150 for his daughter to have to drive to her high school.

Two days later I bought a year 2000 Western Golf Cart that looked a little like a Studebaker car for $1,900 about 45 miles from where I live. There was an ad for a golf cart delivery service for a reasonable price. He charged me $125 to deliver the cart. There are probably golf cart delivery services in you area on your Craigslist or Offerup. I had $2,025 invested in the cart. I advertised the cart the next day for $2,500. I had several calls from people nearby and some from as far as 400 miles from here. The guy in New Mexico was going to drive down here and get the cart, I encouraged him to find a card closer to him and even sent him emails with a similar cart a little closer. Then I had a guy that lived north of Phoenix 60 miles from my place that had a flatbed trailer to haul the cart that was going to come see it. He stood me up. After that I parked the cart near a busy street and put pull tabs with my name and phone number below the for sale sign. In two days time twelve people took pull tabs. I called the guy that stood me up and ask if he still had an interest in the cart, he replied he would come the next day. I put a flyer at the RV park post office near me and got a call from a person there. The guy that stood me up texted he was coming the next day with his trailer to see the cart. He and his wife did come and they did buy the cart for $2,400. There was a real extensive article on the web that told how great these carts are that I included in my ad on Craigslist.

I then saw a 1996 Hyundai golf cart for sale with many parts replaced , new batteries, LED lights, and it is a four seater. I guess I can take our friends for a ride if I do not sell it. The previous two carts were golf carts with bag holders on the back rather than seats. The guy wanted $2,400 I offered $2,200 and he accepted that. I am going to ask $2,950 for the cart. I called my delivery guy and ask how much to go 45 miles to get the cart and it was $120, so I will have $2,320 in it. As you can see it looks like it is relatively easy to make $300 or more off of the sale of each golf cart in the price range I am exploring. https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=yfp-t&ei=UTF-8&p=Hyundai+golf+cart#id=2&vid=6486aa6a37f221c74137066fa0272661&action=view if you go to this web address you can take a virtual tour in You Tube in a 1992 Hyundai golf cart and hear about it’s tributes.

Maybe you could do the same thing in your area not restricted golf carts because there are many things being offered on Craigslist and Offerup that could be bought and marked up for resale and there are virtually no expenses in advertising them and finding buyers. Good luck give it try.

Your Family Budget And How to Deal With Inflation

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I have posted several times how to set up a family budget, but at this point in a run away inflationary economy other measures are necessary. I would suggest that you isolate the cost of groceries and fuel and work on controlling as much as possible the cost of those items.

We all know to watch for service stations that sell gas more economically than others. For example , if you look at the price per gallon of gas at Chevron no matter where you live it can be 50 cents to a dollar more expensive that the surrounding stations, so don’t buy gas at Chevron. I have found that to be true all across the country. Also do not buy fuel that was supplemented with corn products it is bad for your car. In Arizona 87 Octane is the lowest sold but in many states they sell 85 Octane and then 87 Octane and it is usually as much as 50 cents higher sometimes the markup is not that much. Most cars in the owner’s manual recommend 87 Octane fuel. When I was traveling in Denver last week, four stations in one area were having a gas war and selling gas at as low as $3.25 a gallon. Look for areas in the city where you live to see if there are stations having gas wars. Also if you Google low gas prices and the area where you live there are apps that will give you the address of the lowest price stations in your area each and every day. Be sure to keep your oil changes up to date, they will help keep your fuel consumption down. In hot areas if you have to wait for someone in your family or for an appointment, shut the engine off and go inside a nearby building and have them meet your there instead of sitting in your car with the engine idling for long periods of time.

Investment in the stock market does not look good at the present and has not been good all during the current administration in Washington. I took most of my money out of the market several months ago and have avoided even worse declines. It does not appear that the market will turn around any time soon as those in control do numerous things that discourage businesses and affect their profits negatively.

One financial analyst wrote a long discourse on whether people should have gold and silver in their investment portfolio. David Ramsey’s recommendation was that only about 5% of a person’s investment portfolio should be in gold. He was not in favor of people buying silver. I have known people that were gold poor, they had more in gold than they did in conventional stocks and bonds. Ramsey points out that gold and silver have not appreciated a large amount but they are stable. If a person wants a stable investment, gold and silver could provide that but you are not going to be suddenly rich because you own gold.

These are difficult times and it is evident that we need to elect leaders that know what they are doing rather than politicians that do not know what they are doing.

Looking At Your Family Budget and If and When You Can Afford An Electric Car

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When Joe Biden was running for President, he said he was going to eliminate fossil fuel. No one thought he would do all he could to eliminate fossil fuel the first day. Then to top it off be bull headed enough to continue that program when it became evident the United States needs the fossil fuel with the war in Ukraine to keep functioning. His less than effective release of oil reserves did done nothing to reduce the cost of fuel. Fuel costs have risen every single week since Joe Biden took office in most sections of the country. The only permanent way to reduce the fuel costs is allow drilling on Federal Lands like it was under Trump. The United States is not ready for electric cars yet, they do not even have the charging stations to support the current electric cars in existence.

Today the news said the average electric car sells for $68,000. That is more than the average family income in most states. There is a Chevrolet Volt stripped that sells for a little less than $30,000 but what about families that cannot fit into to a compact car. Also the driving distance after charging is much less for the cheaper electric vehicles. Most electric SUV’s cost over $80,000.

A large segment of the population is on fixed income and could never afford an electric car. At current prices and as the fuel prices increase they cannot afford to drive even to work or take short trips. Driving vacations are out in many cases because the prohibitive fuel cost. The cost here in Arizona at the lowest station in Casa Grande is $5.49 a gallon. Then President Biden has the gall to say the increasing cost of fuel is a good thing to prepare people to purchase electric vehicles. President Biden never even had a drivers license for many years he took the train from Delaware to Washington D.C. for many years. He has no idea of the budget challenges of the a family under the conditions that he has created by his executive orders.

If you read the definition on the internet of the make up of the United States Government, it defines the three levels of government as envisioned by the writers of the U.S. Constitution. It states there are three branches of government, the Executive Branch responsible for enforcing the laws Congress has enacted. Congress made up of two bodies the House of Representative and the Senate is responsible for making the laws, and lastly the Judiciary , the Supreme Court responsible for interpreting the laws enacted by the Congress.

Does that look like our government today? No, it does not, the President is proposing virtually every law enacted, enacting laws by executive order while Congress does nothing to override bad Executive Orders. So, in effect the United States is a dictatorship with the President doing as he pleases with little input or resistance from the Congress. Congress proposes some laws but the very few are enacted because they vote along party lines rather than for the good of the country. The Judiciary is slow to act and can decide if they want to hear a case or not. Because of that many important cases are never heard by the Supreme Court.

What to do about all this? The primary elections are beginning to occur around the country. Get out and vote for candidates that will reign in an uncontrollable President. A person that will change an inactive Congress, close our borders, allow drilling so we can become energy independent again. The arrogance of one woman U.S. Senator said look folks I do not have a gasoline fuel problem I have an electric car. Get rid of people like her that are not realistic that people cannot afford an electric car , there are not enough charging stations. Also some engineers have stated that more electricity will be needed than ever before to charge the vehicles and that solar energy is not sufficient to support that need so we will have rolling electric outages..

HELP GET GOOD CANDIDATES, GO TO GET ACQUAINTED SESSIONS FOR THE CANDIDATES SO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE VOTING FOR. HELP STABLILIZE THE GOVERNMENT FROM OUR PRESENT FRAGILE STATUS.