H & R Block: Not the best choice.

I just completed my 2020 Federal taxes. I used H & R Block's website and did them myself. Last year I visited their office and spent the hundred-bucks to have a professional do the work.  It was worth it.  The professional did a great job, I got a nice refund, and there was no fuss, and I got a copy of the worksheets and the 1040-SR for my records.  

This year, I decided I was only going to use H & R Block but I wanted to take a crack at it myself.  Taxes have always been a headache for me.  They're too complicated with all the forms and numbers, but I'm reasonably intelligent and I would struggle through it. I figured that using Block would mean I would have access to last year's work. Nope.  I figured that the software would be as friendly as Intuit's TurboTax® or 2nd Story Software's TaxAct®.  Definitely not.  The TV advertised that I would have a tax professional to help me.  Not for free.  And, when it was all done, I couldn't print off the worksheets or 1040-SR.  

To be fair and honest I paid the $60 to have a professional review the taxes.  Perhaps after the taxes have been finalized by the professional, I'll have a way to print off the work.  I'm holding my breath.  

However, the interface was a sparse as it could be.  The amount of readily available free help was not that helpful, and not so available.  As soon as I started to enter my HSA information, my free version cost me $29.99.  Moreover, I wasn't able to enter the 5498-SA or the interest earned on my checking or savings accounts.  I know that filing small amounts of income isn't required if it's interest or dividend.  However, I would have like to have had the opportunity to input the form and have the software say it wasn't necessary.  

Where I feel I should have been able to file completely for free under a partnership between the IRS agreement with major brands.  However, just like a politician's promise to lower taxes, as soon as you file more than a W2 and a mortgage 1098 you'll be buying the service instead of just performing your patriotic duty.  

Next year I may try FreeTaxUSA.  These folks are advertising a truly free tax filing.  I'm anxious to see if they'll keep their word. 

Mr. President, COVID-19 is a nuclear missile, not a firecracker.

by mike levy
March 17th, 2020

Remember when the news broke about a dangerous killing virus in Wuhan Provence, China?  Remember our president’s response? Remember how other world leaders responded?  In the ’30s and ’40s when a crazed leader decided for world domination, they sent a military mission to destroy important landmarks and make the public afraid.  During that time, the USA sent troops overseas to defeat the enemy on their own soil. 

I’m not saying that the Coronavirus is an attack on our nation by another nation.  At least there’s no evidence of that yet. I am saying that President Trump’s response is the same as if China fired a nuclear missile at the world and he laughed it off as a firework.  Instead of allowing our scientists, doctors, and other professionals to work with other similar professionals around the globe to defeat this virus on foreign soil, President Trump announced on the media and social media that it wasn’t so bad.  That we have all the protections we need.  It reminds me of the atomic drills we used to do when I was in elementary school of climbing under our desks and pointing our butts to the windows as if that would really save our lives.

I know it appears as if President Trump has been a good president, improving our economy, the lowest unemployment in years, keeping those Mexican criminals (not everyone is) out of our country, but at what cost.  He is spot-on when he points to the causes of many of our problems in this country.  But he shows his ignorance in his implementation of the fix.  President Trump has rid the government of reliable and educated scientists on many panels and replaced them with superstitious industry leaders and PAC representatives.  His misguided grunts on twitter and public displays of ignorance indicate that he is not a mentally well man.  Need even more proof, think back to six months ago (Sept. 2019) and hurricane Dorian; sharpiegate.  Once again, our meteorologists provided the president with an accurate forecast of the path of the hurricane.  President Trump decided that they were wrong and embarrassed the professionals, the nation, and his office by misguiding the people over all forms of media and then used that same format to tell lies to cover-up his mistakes.   The actions of our country under President Trump’s poor leadership to prepare for the Coronavirus is just one more time where he ignored the professionals around him and misguided the people.  No wonder he has filed bankruptcy so many times.

So, while we enjoy a two-week staycation, unable to visit family and friends; while the economy that he worked so hard on to improve, now tanks to positions held twenty years ago. And, as Americans live in panic and fear because we’re in the midst of the effects of the virus we could have worked to ward off, let me ask you this important question.  Four more years?  Really?

Dear Phone Company, Cancel my service!

It's not the quality or the price.  It's not the internet, email, text messages, cell phones or any of the other things in the current state of the art that bothers me.  It's your business subscribers.  The telemarketers that call me morning noon and night and harass me.  It's waking up at 7 a.m. after working until 2 a.m. and there's no one on the line.  It is the rude, unintelligentable foreigners pretending to be an American to sell me something I don't need.  It's that my phone number is spread across the planet to anyone and everyone.  And it's the merchants and health providers that insist on having something they should never need.  It's the prospective employers that won't hire you unless you have a phone.  And lastly, the crooks that use my phone to hook me into being a victim of their crime against our civil society.  For all those reasons, and the mere obsolescence of Alexander Bell's invention please take my number off your list.  

I know what you're saying to yourself right now.  How will I be able to function without a phone? I do it right now.  I can't give out my phone number to people I want to talk to because of all the unsolicited callers.  And at least with email, I can arrange to send solicitors to my junk account ... thank you, Yahoo.  However, I'm not going to subscribe to multiple phone lines just to ensure I have one connection of unsolicited callers.  First of all, that wouldn't work.  I don't have a way to filter out good callers from the idiots. So, what's left.  I don't keep stuff that's unusable, and turning off my phone just seems like a better solution than anything else I could do.  

So, for all those merchants, employers, and service providers who have to have a phone number, this is good-bye.  I'll lose weight, reduce stress and my resting heart rate and maybe even find my smile.  And to family and friends, you know my address, drop by, send me a postcard or catch me on the internet.

- later!

Are we that far gone?

I just had the great American breakfast. Two eggs, three strips of bacon and two pieces of toast.  Only the bread I toasted was smaller in size and cut about 1/8th of an inch thinner than in my childhood days and the bacon ... let me tell you about the bacon.

I'm a vegetarian.  For the last fourteen years, I've dodged the temptation to go back to eating meat.  I grew up in a house that served meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Then one night I had a dream that shocked me so terribly that when I woke, I decided never to eat anything with a face again.  

Enter Morning Star bacon.  It smelled the same, tasted pretty close, definitely looked like bacon - I was as happy as the uneaten pig that it didn't come from.  However, for decades I've watched as product producers have raised prices and shrunk products in an attempt to maximize profits.  My bacon began to shrink before I could put it in the pan.  And as of this morning, I've noticed that it is paper thin.  I've decided this will be the last box I'll buy from Morning Star.  The lack of a good experience has motivated me to keep my dollars for something else.  

And that's my point.  When producers start modifying their product to maximize profit, at what point do they also reduce the value of the product so that it is no longer relevant or viable as a consumer good? My love affair with Morning Star bacon was brought about by my love for the taste of meat without actually killing an animal.  However, I'm breaking up with them because they continue to take my dollars for a penny's worth of product.  This isn't a charity.  I'm not donating to the wind in good faith with hopes some good comes out of it.  This is a financial transaction; a quid pro quo - cash for fake bacon.  In my opinion, this is the type of action that will ultimately hurt the business. 

I've seen this happen in multiple places.  My day job is with a well-known theme park.  I've watched as the company continues to raise prices annually, and still millions of people come to visit.  Where is the price point that will alter market share? In my younger days, I learned that two industries that will never go broke are entertainment and advertising.  But when do we disagree with the company's valuation of the good or service their providing? 

Its all about the experience.

Goodbye Verizon.  Do you remember before Verizon was Verizon?  My first cell phone was with Bell Atlantic.  A "baby bell" after the FTC broke up AT&T's landline phone services in 1982.  It was cool, convenient and a great experience to be able to call home without using the boss's phone.  However, as the technology grew and was enhanced, the producers permitted unwanted callers - robo-callers - to invade my personal space.  I consider this on par with identity theft.  I make very few calls, and even fewer people I know call me.  So, why am I paying a company to be annoyed, frustrated and angered? Particularly since there are other forms of communication available to me.  I've decided to unsubscribe from phone services.  I'm paying for a bad experience which is just plain stupid.  

For all those who are uttering to yourselves; yes, I need a phone number for some consumer transactions.  Drop your car off at the shop, order a new pair of glasses, checking in to a hospital; they all want your phone number.  I haven't figure out what to do to satisfy the requirement.  Perhaps I'll just play dumb and ask what is a phone number?  On paper forms, I can put: I'll call you. 

Getting back to the issue, why don't the people at the top of these companies consider the consumer experience?  For the last year or so, Verizon sends me emails and text messages about my upcoming bill.  I pay them on time every month.  I don't need the reminder and cannot turn it off.  After I schedule the bill to be paid I get another text thanking me to for scheduling the payment.  Then I get another warning, only two days until your bill is due.  Then I get another text thanking me for the "eCheck" on the day the payment takes place.  And another email as a receipt for payment.  What, are they so bored and lonely they have to force this one-way conversation every month?  How does this improve the experience?  Maybe they're doing this deliberately to move away from the consumer market, with plans to be a business-to-business operation only.  Hey Verizon, meet hot potato. 

The consumer makes up the market.

The ball is in our court.  We have the power of the dollar in our fists.  Are you annoyed, concerned or turned off by a good or service.  The word that comes to mind is boycott.  But more than a boycott, we need to just stop buying the bad experience that companies like Morning Star and Verizon have decided to offer.  Credit cards are another consumer item that seems to have lost their good experience.  Charging outlandish interest and fees.  Similar to phone service, there are other cheaper and more interesting ways to pay for goods and services.  I have one credit card in my wallet.  So far, I've enjoyed a very good experience with this card.  The moment it stops being fun, utilitarian, valuable I'll break out the scissors and break-up the relationship.  

Finally, we all have been preached to by financial experts in the media to be smart and responsible. Each has their dos-and-don'ts list.  Let me suggest that you resort to your own heart.  In the 70's we would shout, if it feels good - do it.  In the 2010's as consumers let me suggest if it doesn't feel good - don't keep it. Perhaps we just need to turn off the noise and think about what we really need in this world and what we're willing to trade our years of effort, training, and sweat for.  

Why I don't like Progressive Snapshot and related programs.

Whoa, Flo!  Every time I brake with medium to heavy braking, you'll raise my rates?  Well, it hasn't happened to me yet, but that's what the Progressive website is warning.  When I was with Allstate, their program scrutinizes speed and time of day as well.  I understand why insurance companies want you to drive only in the middle of the day, never going over 30 mph, and barely touching your breaks. There's less chance of filing a claim when you give yourself the best opportunity to make good judgments.  But let's be honest, while some of us are trying to reduce our overpriced auto insurance premiums, the rest of the world is living real life.  They're passing us - sometimes flicking the bird, cutting in front of us to exit the highway, or just before they reach that traffic light that's turning red.  So, the choice is a hard-breaking event or an insurance claim.

To be fair, this is a consumer choice. You can opt out at any time, and face the slightly higher rates.  I just think that scrutinizing your driving habits with such unrealistic parameters simply opens you to being unjustly charged.  

In Mike's World, insurance charges you a base rate and then discount 10% for every year you've gone claim free.  When you get to ten years with no claims, you're charge a basic administrative fee to renew the policy.  The administrative fee would be something like $50 every 6 months.  Claims are anytime you use the policy, collisions, windshield repair, theft ... just like today.  Then the insurance company can ask you for a "Good Samaritan" donation.  The amount you'd be willing to add to their pot to cover those bad drivers in your local area.  The decision to donate and the amount of the donation is up to you.  Yea, Baby!

Yes, I know that insurance isn't supposed to work that way.  Everyone contributes based on the driving habits of your local area.  The asshole that cuts you off and drives 80 in a 30 and T/A's into the phone poll moments later contribute the risk you take every time you pull out of your driveway - thus the amount you're charged to renew your premium.   But to add a device that will surreptitiously call you a bad driver for using your driving skills to avoid an accident is just plain stupid.  

Better than Allstate. 

As much as I don't like Progressive's Snapshot, it's better than the program that Allstate has.  Yes, other auto insurancers offer similar dongles to attach to your vehicle's OTB port and will monitor your driving habits. Progressive only monitor's you for 30 days.  When I was insured by Allstate, they left it in my car forever.   BTW: I didn't switch from Allstate as a result of their Drivewise ® program.  I just found a better rate. 

Why doesn't history matter? 

So, who am I?  I'm a guy, over 60 years old, haven't even had a fender-bender in decades, and can't remember my last traffic ticket.  I'm a commercial driver, who has been awarded for 15 years of safe driving by my company, I have "safe driver" on my license and recently started teaching others how to drive.  Why then, does the insurance company charge me almost a thousand dollars every six months?  I can't answer that.  I pay the premium because I have to have insurance.  My deductible is high to cut the cost and after my car is valued at less than $2000 I drop my comp & collision. I don't buy any of the "premium" services such as roadside assistance or car rental reimbursement.  With all these cost-cutting measures along with my great driving habits, you'd think the insurance would want me to buy their policy for as cheap as possible and use my picture as a poster to encourage safe driving and their genuine concern for our safety.  Nope, just like the idiot with the loud mufflers and the even louder stereo, I'm just a number who pays the same amount for my premium.