Saturday, March 19, 2022
Comments off due to spam
Due to a spate of spam comments, commenting has been turned off for this blog. Eventually, all posts will be moved to a new home and this domain may be released, anyway. (Let me know if you're interested in buying the domain.)
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Pay Taxes On Time, But Slowly
This week,
in the USA, estimated taxes are due.
That means that if you don't have your taxes withheld by a W2 employer,
you need to send the Infernal, er excuse me I mean,
Internal Revenue Service
a check for about 1/4 of the taxes you will owe on this year's income.
That doesn't apply for most people...
but for freelancers, contractors, consultants,
and other small business owners, it's a quarterly ritual.
Many people prefer to get it over with quickly, sending the money directly from the business bank account to the IRS via their electronic payment system, called EFTPS. Of course, many of us tech addicts like to do that.
BUT...
Just like with overpaying taxes (whether estimated or withheld), sending in your taxes sooner than you need to is giving Uncle Sam an interest-free loan, avoidably. Let's do some math.
A stamp is currently 46 cents. Pick an estimated tax payment of $1k per quarter just to make the math easy. Ass-u-me you can invest at 6%, and that a check takes three days to get there and another week to get cashed, for a total of ten days, while EFTPS is effectively instant. (It isn't really, but the transaction has to go through by the tax deadline, while mailed taxes only have to be postmarked by then, so the difference is as though EFTPS were instant.)
By hanging onto the money for an extra ten days, you earn $1k times (1.06^(10/365) - 1) in interest. That works out to $1.60. In order to get this, you paid a price of $0.46 for the stamp, plus let's ass-u-me negligible cost for the check and envelope. So, by sending a paper check, you made a net profit of about $1.14.
Yes, that's pretty small. But now, multiply that interest by how many $k your estimated tax payment really is. In other words, if your payment is $10k, that's about $16 in interest, or $15.54 in profit. If your payment is $20k, that's about $32 in interest, or $31.54 in profit. If you like, you can also play around with various parameters, like longer and shorter times of hanging onto the money, higher and lower rates of return, and what the check itself and the envelope actually cost you. Under almost all scenarios of actually making a decent living off non-W2 work, it's profitable to write out and snail-mail a paper check.
Many people prefer to get it over with quickly, sending the money directly from the business bank account to the IRS via their electronic payment system, called EFTPS. Of course, many of us tech addicts like to do that.
BUT...
Just like with overpaying taxes (whether estimated or withheld), sending in your taxes sooner than you need to is giving Uncle Sam an interest-free loan, avoidably. Let's do some math.
A stamp is currently 46 cents. Pick an estimated tax payment of $1k per quarter just to make the math easy. Ass-u-me you can invest at 6%, and that a check takes three days to get there and another week to get cashed, for a total of ten days, while EFTPS is effectively instant. (It isn't really, but the transaction has to go through by the tax deadline, while mailed taxes only have to be postmarked by then, so the difference is as though EFTPS were instant.)
By hanging onto the money for an extra ten days, you earn $1k times (1.06^(10/365) - 1) in interest. That works out to $1.60. In order to get this, you paid a price of $0.46 for the stamp, plus let's ass-u-me negligible cost for the check and envelope. So, by sending a paper check, you made a net profit of about $1.14.
Yes, that's pretty small. But now, multiply that interest by how many $k your estimated tax payment really is. In other words, if your payment is $10k, that's about $16 in interest, or $15.54 in profit. If your payment is $20k, that's about $32 in interest, or $31.54 in profit. If you like, you can also play around with various parameters, like longer and shorter times of hanging onto the money, higher and lower rates of return, and what the check itself and the envelope actually cost you. Under almost all scenarios of actually making a decent living off non-W2 work, it's profitable to write out and snail-mail a paper check.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Be Nice on the Way Up
You may
remember the old Genesis song "Paperlate", in which Phil Collins sings:
Today, one of my favorite DJs, er, I mean, radio personalities (Paul Harris, whose blog and podcast are well worth following) published this piece about Judy Gold. It's not so much about her current doings, or even her career overall. Instead, he tells of when she was, or at least was going to be, on his radio show twenty years ago.
Rather than recapping the story, I'll let you go read it. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Yes, she's had a decent career. But think... if it hadn't been for that attitude, causing that incident and doubtless many others, where could she be by now? How many extra fans could she have made that morning (and again, doubtless many other such opportunities), even if they didn't buy tickets for that show?
And what about in her "golden" years, when she's a washed-up old has-been? Think she'll be able to get many radio guest spots, when she's desperate to get butts in seats at her shows? Not if the host has read that article, or dealt with her before the attitude adjustment that I hope she's had since then....
There's a term for people like that in the theater business: prima donna. There are much harsher terms for them in real life. Whatever you call it... don't be one.
There's no need to be nice on the way upOf course, most of us will come down. Even if you don't, surely you'd like to go up faster, right?
'Cos you're not coming down!
Today, one of my favorite DJs, er, I mean, radio personalities (Paul Harris, whose blog and podcast are well worth following) published this piece about Judy Gold. It's not so much about her current doings, or even her career overall. Instead, he tells of when she was, or at least was going to be, on his radio show twenty years ago.
Rather than recapping the story, I'll let you go read it. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Yes, she's had a decent career. But think... if it hadn't been for that attitude, causing that incident and doubtless many others, where could she be by now? How many extra fans could she have made that morning (and again, doubtless many other such opportunities), even if they didn't buy tickets for that show?
And what about in her "golden" years, when she's a washed-up old has-been? Think she'll be able to get many radio guest spots, when she's desperate to get butts in seats at her shows? Not if the host has read that article, or dealt with her before the attitude adjustment that I hope she's had since then....
There's a term for people like that in the theater business: prima donna. There are much harsher terms for them in real life. Whatever you call it... don't be one.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Be an Inbox Ninja!
One of the biggest
productivity sinks most of us face is email. From the sheer volume (even
after decent spam-filtering), to the necessity of actually checking your
spam filter to make sure nothing got stuck in there that you actually need to
deal with, to the temptation to waste even more time writing a reply, it
sucks up hours of a typical busy professional's day. How can we
deal with it?!
There are three main ways to deal with pretty much anything with daunting volume:
First of course you can reduce the volume! Unsubscribe from any email lists that aren't sufficiently useful, amusing, or whatever other criteria you apply, to make it worth their contribution to the load. That's so obvious that I'm going to assume you've already done that. (Or at least heard of it, considered it, and procrastinated about it.)
Second, you can just suck it up and attack the problem. If you've chosen that path, good luck! As you wade through the stupid jokes from your relatives, the latest sale announcements from your favorite stores, and other such dreck, your vital business communications are going unread for too long.
Third, you can be an inbox ninja! No, I don't mean leave it unseen, I mean to slice and dice it so you can attack it in the most effective places first. There are many cuts you can make, but the basic two I like are direct vs. list, and work vs. not-work. This allows you to separate your email into four "buckets": work-related email sent directly to you, work-related lists, non-work email sent directly to you, and non-work lists.
How to apply this strategy, depends on what tools are available for the program you use to read email. I use GMail, and usually directly at their web interface. Like most email programs, that lets me do a search. Pretty much any email program lets you do that. GMail, however, is particularly powerful in that it will let you do the search automagically on incoming mail (they call it a "filter"), and use that to apply any labels to each piece of email. These let me use a much simpler search later to get that "quadrant" of my email.
Let's look at an example. Suppose I'm a veeblefetzer repairman. Anything mentioning veebelefetzers or repairing is work-related, along with the various popular brands of veeblefetzers, such as Furd and Potrzebie. Also, anything from veebleworld.com (where people may contact me directly, or post in forums, which will send me an email from the forums subdomain), or from anyone in my company (backbelt.com), or from the Veeblezebie mailing list, or from Melvin Cowznofski. I also subscribe to the blues-guitar and skeet-shooter lists, but these have nothing to do with work, nor do any of my other frequent correspondents.
(For the sake of simplicity, let's say all the lists are at Yahoo. Slightly different filtering techniques may be needed for lists hosted elsewhere, like looking for words from a header, footer, or subject line preface.)
So, I can set up filters as follows:
Alternately, if I were reading my email via a desktop client program such as Thunderbird, I could set up filters to route the mail into folders based on the search results.
If your raw searches are large enough to be cumbersome, there are also the plus sign trick, and, if you have your own domain, catchall addresses. These are ways to create unique addresses on the fly. (If your email host honors the plus-sign standard, as Google does, append a plus sign and any other words you want, to the username part of your GMail address, and it will still get to you. So, if you're joeshmoe@example.com, and example.com honors this trick, email to joeshmoe+whatever@example.com will also get to you.) You can use these generated addresses to subscribe to lists that don't have some visible trace you can search on, or to separate out work lists, or even separate lists into ones for ads, announcements, discussions, or even particular topics. I would sign up for the non-work lists as joeshmoe+lists@example.com, the work lists as joeshmoe+work+lists@example.com, any other work-related sites as joeshmoe+work@example.com, and everything else as joeshmoe@example.com. Then, I could just search for "work" and "lists" as words in the To line rather than labels on the message.
(Or you can look for plus-signed tags in order to apply labels. You can combine all these tricks however you like.)
In summary:
There are three main ways to deal with pretty much anything with daunting volume:
First of course you can reduce the volume! Unsubscribe from any email lists that aren't sufficiently useful, amusing, or whatever other criteria you apply, to make it worth their contribution to the load. That's so obvious that I'm going to assume you've already done that. (Or at least heard of it, considered it, and procrastinated about it.)
Second, you can just suck it up and attack the problem. If you've chosen that path, good luck! As you wade through the stupid jokes from your relatives, the latest sale announcements from your favorite stores, and other such dreck, your vital business communications are going unread for too long.
Third, you can be an inbox ninja! No, I don't mean leave it unseen, I mean to slice and dice it so you can attack it in the most effective places first. There are many cuts you can make, but the basic two I like are direct vs. list, and work vs. not-work. This allows you to separate your email into four "buckets": work-related email sent directly to you, work-related lists, non-work email sent directly to you, and non-work lists.
How to apply this strategy, depends on what tools are available for the program you use to read email. I use GMail, and usually directly at their web interface. Like most email programs, that lets me do a search. Pretty much any email program lets you do that. GMail, however, is particularly powerful in that it will let you do the search automagically on incoming mail (they call it a "filter"), and use that to apply any labels to each piece of email. These let me use a much simpler search later to get that "quadrant" of my email.
Let's look at an example. Suppose I'm a veeblefetzer repairman. Anything mentioning veebelefetzers or repairing is work-related, along with the various popular brands of veeblefetzers, such as Furd and Potrzebie. Also, anything from veebleworld.com (where people may contact me directly, or post in forums, which will send me an email from the forums subdomain), or from anyone in my company (backbelt.com), or from the Veeblezebie mailing list, or from Melvin Cowznofski. I also subscribe to the blues-guitar and skeet-shooter lists, but these have nothing to do with work, nor do any of my other frequent correspondents.
(For the sake of simplicity, let's say all the lists are at Yahoo. Slightly different filtering techniques may be needed for lists hosted elsewhere, like looking for words from a header, footer, or subject line preface.)
So, I can set up filters as follows:
- If something fits the search:
veeblefetzers OR repair* OR furd OR potrzebie OR veebleworld OR backbelt.com OR veeblezebie OR from:cowznofski@example.com, then tag it with the label "Work". - If something fits the search:
from:forums.veebleworld.com OR to:yahoogroups.com, then tag it with the label "list".
in:inbox label:work -label:list. After I'm done with
that I can search on in:inbox label:work label:list to get my work
lists. When I get home, I can search on in:inbox -label:list
-label:work and in:inbox label:list -label:work. If
I didn't have labels available, I could still achieve the same goal by
combining the two searches. Either way, I could make these searches
easier by saving them as URLs; if you don't use the web to read your email, you
could save them as canned text strings to paste into the search field.
GMail provides a Quick Links "lab" to make it even
easier.
Alternately, if I were reading my email via a desktop client program such as Thunderbird, I could set up filters to route the mail into folders based on the search results.
If your raw searches are large enough to be cumbersome, there are also the plus sign trick, and, if you have your own domain, catchall addresses. These are ways to create unique addresses on the fly. (If your email host honors the plus-sign standard, as Google does, append a plus sign and any other words you want, to the username part of your GMail address, and it will still get to you. So, if you're joeshmoe@example.com, and example.com honors this trick, email to joeshmoe+whatever@example.com will also get to you.) You can use these generated addresses to subscribe to lists that don't have some visible trace you can search on, or to separate out work lists, or even separate lists into ones for ads, announcements, discussions, or even particular topics. I would sign up for the non-work lists as joeshmoe+lists@example.com, the work lists as joeshmoe+work+lists@example.com, any other work-related sites as joeshmoe+work@example.com, and everything else as joeshmoe@example.com. Then, I could just search for "work" and "lists" as words in the To line rather than labels on the message.
(Or you can look for plus-signed tags in order to apply labels. You can combine all these tricks however you like.)
In summary:
- Define searches that pick out segments of your email.
- Apply these searches in applicable combinations.
- Save the combinations in some convenient way.
- Attack your email pile by prioritized chunks!
- Having accomplished your mission, leave the email castle, fading silently into the night.
Monday, December 15, 2014
Bill of Rights Day: ALL of it!
Today is not a widely
honored holiday here in the United States of America. But it
should be.
Long story short, December 15 is Bill of Rights Day. It was declared in 1941 by President Franklin Roosevelt, at the request of Congress. Since then, however, it has been largely ignored. The Bill of Rights is a key part of what makes America America. (Or at least, what America's supposed to be.)
Yes, America often strays from the principles it outlines (along with our other founding documents). That has been the source of many of our troubles as a country. Far from meaning that we should ignore it, that makes it all the more important to remember it, honor it -- and insist that our government obey it.
So far, so good, right?
Now comes the tough part. Some of you may be big fans of, say, the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech... but not so much, say, the Second Amendment's guarantees of the right to keep and bear arms (i.e., own and carry weapons, such as guns). Or you may be a big fan of the Second, but not so much the Fourth Amendment's guarantees of privacy. Who knows, you might even object to the Third Amendment's protections against troops being quartered in private homes in peacetime without the owner's consent.
Well, too bad! We must honor all of the Bill of Rights, and for that matter the rest of the Constitution, or it doesn't mean a thing.
Long story short, December 15 is Bill of Rights Day. It was declared in 1941 by President Franklin Roosevelt, at the request of Congress. Since then, however, it has been largely ignored. The Bill of Rights is a key part of what makes America America. (Or at least, what America's supposed to be.)
Yes, America often strays from the principles it outlines (along with our other founding documents). That has been the source of many of our troubles as a country. Far from meaning that we should ignore it, that makes it all the more important to remember it, honor it -- and insist that our government obey it.
So far, so good, right?
Now comes the tough part. Some of you may be big fans of, say, the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech... but not so much, say, the Second Amendment's guarantees of the right to keep and bear arms (i.e., own and carry weapons, such as guns). Or you may be a big fan of the Second, but not so much the Fourth Amendment's guarantees of privacy. Who knows, you might even object to the Third Amendment's protections against troops being quartered in private homes in peacetime without the owner's consent.
Well, too bad! We must honor all of the Bill of Rights, and for that matter the rest of the Constitution, or it doesn't mean a thing.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Get off your duff tomorrow!
It's been a looooong time since my last post here. Sorry 'bout that! Been kinda busy working. But an important thought occurred to me about tomorrow.
No, I don't mean the generic tomorrow, as in the near future. I mean specifically November 5, 2013. Or rather, the day after the first Monday (which, mind you, isn't necessarily the first Tuesday!) of every November.
Those of you in the USA might have already guessed what I mean. Even if you're not here, keep reading, because this probably applies to you too, albeit with different timing!
Some of you are eager to go to the polls. (If that's you, great, thank you, you can stop reading now. You might want to keep reading, though, to see what I have to say to the rest. I'd sure appreciate your passing it along to those who need to hear it.)
Some of you reading this might not be able to vote for one reason or another; that's a different story altogether.
The rest of you, though, LISTEN UP! You might be thinking, "why bother, the major parties never put up anybody worth voting for, and the minor parties don't stand a chance."
If that's your attitude, then:
You probably say your refusal to vote is an act of protest, right? That's baloney and you know it. You're just being lazy, not doing squat to earn your right to complain. (I am trying to keep this blog family-friendly, but at times like this it gets a mite difficult.)
Offended? Good! Maybe you'll get off your duff now! Oh, you still wonder why you should?
The Powers that Be, much as they might be spying on us, can't tell whether you're refusing to vote because you're protesting, or you're just too lazy, or you forgot, or you had some emergency and couldn't get to the polls (like happened to me last year). (Lesson: vote absentee/early if you can!)
So long as turnout is as abysmally low as usual, they have every right to assume you're being lazy. And you know what? The vast majority of the time, they'll be right.
Now, if you're too lazy to vote, why should they give half a damn about you? Do they really think that you're going to suddenly find a burst of energy when it's time to grab guns and head to the makeshift barricades? Or when it's time to go to the protest rally, or Occupy Whatever? Riiiiiiight. I don't think so, neither do they, and deep down, admit it, neither do you. You probably won't even sign a petition, let alone work for a campaign. Your own history indicates you probably won't do the easiest thing they fear most -- vote for the other candidate.
There's an old saying: "The world is run by those who show up." If you won't bother to show up, okay, fine, I'd probably rather you personally not be involved in running the world. But then... don't come griping to me.
You know those silly little "I Voted" stickers? I call mine my "griping license". I don't listen to unlicensed griping.
No, I don't mean the generic tomorrow, as in the near future. I mean specifically November 5, 2013. Or rather, the day after the first Monday (which, mind you, isn't necessarily the first Tuesday!) of every November.
Those of you in the USA might have already guessed what I mean. Even if you're not here, keep reading, because this probably applies to you too, albeit with different timing!
Some of you are eager to go to the polls. (If that's you, great, thank you, you can stop reading now. You might want to keep reading, though, to see what I have to say to the rest. I'd sure appreciate your passing it along to those who need to hear it.)
Some of you reading this might not be able to vote for one reason or another; that's a different story altogether.
The rest of you, though, LISTEN UP! You might be thinking, "why bother, the major parties never put up anybody worth voting for, and the minor parties don't stand a chance."
If that's your attitude, then:
YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!
You probably say your refusal to vote is an act of protest, right? That's baloney and you know it. You're just being lazy, not doing squat to earn your right to complain. (I am trying to keep this blog family-friendly, but at times like this it gets a mite difficult.)
Offended? Good! Maybe you'll get off your duff now! Oh, you still wonder why you should?
The Powers that Be, much as they might be spying on us, can't tell whether you're refusing to vote because you're protesting, or you're just too lazy, or you forgot, or you had some emergency and couldn't get to the polls (like happened to me last year). (Lesson: vote absentee/early if you can!)
So long as turnout is as abysmally low as usual, they have every right to assume you're being lazy. And you know what? The vast majority of the time, they'll be right.
Now, if you're too lazy to vote, why should they give half a damn about you? Do they really think that you're going to suddenly find a burst of energy when it's time to grab guns and head to the makeshift barricades? Or when it's time to go to the protest rally, or Occupy Whatever? Riiiiiiight. I don't think so, neither do they, and deep down, admit it, neither do you. You probably won't even sign a petition, let alone work for a campaign. Your own history indicates you probably won't do the easiest thing they fear most -- vote for the other candidate.
There's an old saying: "The world is run by those who show up." If you won't bother to show up, okay, fine, I'd probably rather you personally not be involved in running the world. But then... don't come griping to me.
You know those silly little "I Voted" stickers? I call mine my "griping license". I don't listen to unlicensed griping.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Follow Up... WAY Up!
Everybody has had the experience: "D'oh! I forgot to follow up on that, and now the opportunity is gone!" Whether the opportunity is for a job, a client, a lover, or whatever, you need to get back to them. And yet, being merely human, we forget.
This is one of those areas where being an absolute geek can really help. No, it won't help you figure out what to say to them, but it can help you remember to do it at all. How?
The basic concept is very much like a "tickler file". (I'll wait while you go look at that article, if you're not familiar with them already.) The geeky twist I add, is that I don't file an actual physical document, just a reference in a spreadsheet.
Yes, a spreadsheet. They're not just for suits and green-eyeshades. They're a great way to organize any kind of information that you just need to record a few brief pieces of information about, and may need to sort in various ways.
Let's look at a small simulated excerpt from my client-hunting spreadsheet, which originally started as a job-hunting spreadsheet. (The company names have of course been changed. The dates are in YYYY-MM-DD format, aka ISO 8601, so that even if they're not in a "real" spreadsheet program, but rather a plain text file, they'll still sort in the right order.)
This is one of those areas where being an absolute geek can really help. No, it won't help you figure out what to say to them, but it can help you remember to do it at all. How?
The basic concept is very much like a "tickler file". (I'll wait while you go look at that article, if you're not familiar with them already.) The geeky twist I add, is that I don't file an actual physical document, just a reference in a spreadsheet.
Yes, a spreadsheet. They're not just for suits and green-eyeshades. They're a great way to organize any kind of information that you just need to record a few brief pieces of information about, and may need to sort in various ways.
Let's look at a small simulated excerpt from my client-hunting spreadsheet, which originally started as a job-hunting spreadsheet. (The company names have of course been changed. The dates are in YYYY-MM-DD format, aka ISO 8601, so that even if they're not in a "real" spreadsheet program, but rather a plain text file, they'll still sort in the right order.)
| Company | Status | Last Contact | Followup On |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fubar Heavy Industries Inc. | CALL THEM ASAP | 2012-10-04 | 2012-10-08 |
| Conceptual Concepts Ltd. | waiting for NDA | 2012-10-03 | 2012-10-10 |
| Widgets R Us | I emailed them | 2012-09-28 | 2012-10-12 |
So tomorrow morning, I should call Fubar Heavy Industries, as we arranged on Friday. Suppose the result of that call is, "we'll give you a decision within two weeks". Then the 10-08 becomes 10-22... and I sort the sheet on the "Followup On" column again.
Next up would be Conceptual Concepts Ltd. I'm waiting for them to send me an NDA. They said on last Thursday afternoon that they would do it, but as of Sunday I haven't seen it yet. If they still haven't sent me the NDA by this Thursday, I'll send a reminder... and add another week to the "Followup On" column, and sort again.
After that would be Widgets R Us. I emailed them the week before last, in response to an ad on a job board that said they were looking for contractors. If they don't get back to me within two weeks, I will send a note... and add another two, or maybe three weeks to their followup date. If that one comes and goes with no response, I'll probably just delete their row. If they then contact me later, I've still got the other information.
Other information? Not in the spreadsheet? Where am I keeping track of that? I have another column (not shown) for brief notes, but there's a lot more information than can fit there.
You're going to get an extra-special bonus on how I keep my stuff organized! If you are a potential client/employer and call me, I'll probably ask you to wait a moment as I pull up your file. Yes, I keep a file, or possibly several files, on each potential, current, or past client. Many have been surprised (pleasantly, I hope!) that I'm so organized.
In my work directory is a directory with (at least) a text file for each one, such as ~/work/clients/WidgetsRUs.txt. This contains copies of all correspondence, notes, etc. If I need to store additional files, such as NDAs, I create a directory for that, such as ~/work/clients/WidgetsRUs_files. In there I store files like ~/work/clients/WidgetsRUs_files/Aronson-NDA-Signed.pdf.
As yet another bonus tip for you: note how the filename contains my own name... for the client's convenience. My own convenience in organizing, is served by the directory structure.
So now, as always, it's your turn. How do you keep track of stuff you need to do all the time? Do you use a to-do list application, something more specialized, reminders on your calendar, a text file, or what? What problems or unexpected benefits have you encountered?
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