The Advantage of Filing Our Own Taxes

Finally, I was able to submit our tax return thru Netfile last week :-)

The investment I made in buying an H&R Block at Home not only payed off by itself, but I was able to learn new things. Not only I was able to learn how to file my taxes (plus my family) on my own, I also learned more about the deductions that we can claim.

As an added bonus, I was even able to perform what-if analysis in some situations. In the case of daycare expenses, for example, we were missing 3 monthly receipts. So we were contemplating if we need to pay the $25 penalty just to ask for the copies of these receipts or we can do without asking them. Using the tax software we were able to check that it did not matter anymore if we had the missing receipts or not (saving us an additional $25!)

The H&R Block at Home itself was simple to use. I specifically like the interview style of questioning because it was like talking to a personal accountant myself. The Help icons were also quite helpful especially if I had some questions.

After doing the tax myself, I would only go to a tax preparation firm if my tax situation gets complicated enough that even the tax software could not even figure out what I am doing.

The Irony Of It All

Just read thru Yahoo an article titled, The 7 Costly Pro Athletes Screw ups. It details 7 examples of professional athletes who just squandered their millions of earnings even resulting into bankruptcy for some of them (boxer Mike Tyson is cited as an example). Yes I remember watching Tyson in a recent movie, Hangover, where he was featured as having a Bengal tiger (according to this article, he bought this tiger for about 70,000 dollars each). Tyson filed for bankruptcy last 2003 (no wonder he has to just to earn his dough by being an extra in this movie)

Having a million dollar income and a stellar career in sports, for example, does not mean an automatic sense of business or financial savvy. Being financially literate takes some effort to learn, but it is worth it - ultimately it will benefit us in the long run.

Again, it is not the money we earn rather how we keep the money (and make it grow) is all that matters. You can ask any lottery winner (who just squandered their millions) about this.

Self-Service Car Wash

Today was my day off so I had a chance of going to my favorite self-service car wash. 


One benefit of having a different day off than the majority of the working population (whose day off seems to always coincide with the weekends), is that the car washes are usually empty. I can just go inside, and start washing my car (eliminating the waiting time). 


All in all, it saved me 7 bucks (as compared to an automatic car wash. And I completed it in just 20 minutes.

The only regret I had though was I still do not know how to maximize my investment so that I can go over all the car wash features  (I cannot figure out a way how to use the Rainx feature, for example).


 
To recap :

Savings : 7 bucks        Time Spent : 20 minutes


 
If you have other savings tips when doing self-service car wash, do let me know :-)

My First Post

At last, I already have my own blog and own domain :-)

This will be a blog about personal finance and health topics - topics that is being dealt with daily by ordinary folks like us.

I have created this blog to share valuable information (which I would be getting from various reliable sources like online magazines and newspapers), and is aimed in helping out ordinary families and individuals (the average Joe of the community who is struggling to make ends meet) provide reliable information to aid them in their daily decisions with regards to not just their personal finances but also on how to maintain healthy lives.

Hopefully, this blog can also serve as a springboard for discussions between the readers- to share (and even debate) useful information that would be beneficial to the whole community.

For those of you who are wondering why I call myself Chinook Guy, here's the reason why :

I live in Calgary, where Chinook winds are fairly common. According to Wikipedia, chinook winds originally meant a warming wind from the ocean into the interior regions of the Pacific Northwest. Having a chinook in Calgary during winter, for example, means snow can just melt in a matter of hours or days (after which, winter will come back again. I called myself Chinook because I personally like chinook winds coming down because it gives us, Calgarians, a break from the not-so-exciting winter (which could sometimes reach up to -40 deg C of freezing weather).