Mine keeps calling me at dinner time trying to talk to me. You’d think after the 73rd time I didn’t answer they’d leave me alone for a while…
^ Same here. They call me every month. My answer is always the same. I’ve made it despite my alma matter. I hate to admit it but it’s true.
yea calling is too much. i get a botaload of mail from them they waste so many trees
CvM said, "I want to ensure the utility of my money is used well."
That is why I donate, but not often money directly. It is mostly in the form of things the charity / social organisation needs, bought by me from my money and then donated to the needy organisation. To do so I have to do some homework like talking to the office-bearers of the charity / social organisation and find their need or what would help them or their targeted beneficiary most and then make a budget to plan how much and when I am going to spend to meet their need and donate. This ensures my money is used well and for genuine cause. In this way I have donated substantial sums of money by purchasing school text books (for street-children schools NGOs), furniture and fixtures (like fans, cupboards etc for old-age and destitute homes ), medicines and life-saving drugs for health providing NGOs etc. This helps knowing them and their work comprehensively as mopst them are too happy to make presentations to put forward their needs and use of the donation (some even show its utilisation inviting for a visit).
Sometimes have donated cash directly, but only to reliable organisations like Mother Teresa’s Charity, SOS village etc. , as well as providing some of them (smaller in size but reliable NGOs providing services for free to target population locally in devastated areas in countries like Ethiopia, Eritrea, Angola, Afghanistan etc.) free professional service from writing project proposals for govt. / foundation grants (in great demand!) to planning and organising fund raisers, developing simple RDBMS soft-ware / excel-based programs for their admin and work etc. Of course neither got any IT deductions due to the nature of my giving nor wish to spend the necessary time for record keeping etc. (want no hassles for charity at least).
CvM, I think http://www.givewell.org/ is probably the closest thing to what you want.
The website was created by 2 former Bridgewater guys. They basically do something akin to equity research - they try to find out which charities save the most lives with the least dollars. Their top choices are pretty impressive and, in my opinion, it is definitely worth a look.
My university calls me almost twice a day. I saved the call in number on my contacts list so I know not to pick up.
Mygos and Crazyman, Respect.
Greenie, my charitable donations can go on the schedule A so long as it exceeds the Standard Deduction (which is $5800 or something) right?
^They can go on there whether you meet the standard deduction or not.
Remember, you also have medical expenses (as long as they exceed 7.5% of AGI), mortgage interest, casualty/theft losses, tax prep/investment/safetly deposit box fees (as long as they exceed 2% of AGI), property taxes, and either state income tax OR sales tax.
Then you can take either the standard deduction ($6,100 in 2013) or Schedule A, whichever is greater.
Explain the State Income Tax or Sales Tax bit. I’ve never understood that and trusted Turbo Tax to not fck me over.
I assume you pay NY state income tax. You might pay city and county income tax, too. Any state or local income tax that you paid in 2012 is deductible on your 2012 1040. (Don’t ask me anything about NY state tax–each state is different and Texas has no income tax. Yay!) According to the Schedule A instructions, you can deduct any state taxes that were withheld from your paycheck, or that you paid in 2012 (whether it be an estimate or last year’s tax payment).
Alternatively, you can deduct any sales tax that you paid. You can either deduct what you actually paid (if you kept up with it all year long), or you can use the “sales tax table”, and the IRS will calculate what your “estimated sales tax paid” during the year was. I have no idea how to use the table–that’s what software is for. But if you’re interested, just google “1040 Schedule A instructions” and look at the table.
Note that you can deduct EITHER state and local income tax OR sales tax. You can’t deduct both. (Solution: Just move to the great state of Texas, where we don’t have an income tax.)
Camscanner is a good way to track reciepts, if you want to track sales tax.
Starting Spring Semester, I’ll be teaching kids at a local hacksaw community college as an adjunct instructor.
Itera, bring me the freshly oxized hacksaw to get to work on these 99%ers.
ha ha, you should talk to them the way you talk in the Water Cooler.
James altucher on donating money: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/03/how-to-become-a-superhero/ Cliffsnotes: Dont go for big charitable foundations. Look for local news (family lost everything on a fire, parents die leaving kids alone, acquaintances under medical urgencies).
^IRL - you can give money to whomever you want. But for it to be tax-deductible, it has to be to “qualified charitable organization”.
Specifically, you cannot donate money “to or for an individual , unless the individual is an agent for a qualified organization.” So if I got seriously injured in a house fire, any money that you gave me for living quarters or medical bills would not be tax deductible. Donations to the ACLU, however, are tax-deductible.
As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.
New Years resolution number 1, donate more money.
This will open your eyes on many things (how much work it is to prepare a good course; how much grading sucks; how much you know compared to people just starting out). It will also feel rewarding, but highly underpaid. Good thing you have a day job.
When I taught at an Ivy, I found myself amazed how how students could be basically smart, but still know very little. Or how they can glom on to a few details and believe that that knowing a few facts a substitute for genuine understanding. Often times both smart and dumb students can know a lot about one tiny segment of stuff. The difference between the smart students and the dumb students is how readily they generalize from a tiny slice of the world to the rest of the world, and their willingness/ability to absorb new data and ways of analyzing it.
Still, good for you. If you need a guest lecturer one day, you can call me and I’ll see if I can put something interesting together for you.
Make sure you don’t mention AF to them, we don’t need any more hacksawed college kids around here!
Respect. Will you come in wielding a rusty hacksaw? And you’re right about the pay! I get $500 a credit. Whooptie do. Lucky for them I want to do it and help out. Let’s say you taught for 15 credits a semester, that’s a whopping $7,500 bucks! How can an instructor live on that!
It’s not just 7500 a semeseter… It’s 7500 plus access to a revolving pool of impressionable 18-20yr old females.