Family Night Fretting and Fun

Every Monday night is family night in our household where we reserve time to enjoy one another's company while working together, playing games, etc. Last night I dragged my kids out into the front yard to assist with a small yard cleaning project before we played an outdoors game. I'm sure you can imagine just how enthusiastic my boys were.

In our front yard is a tree with which I have a love/hate relationship. I don't know exactly what kind of tree it is, but it provides nice, cool shade in the summer time. In the winter, however, it drops these spiky seed pods that, with the help of the snow and rain, become embedded deep within the grass. So, come springtime, when the grass is green, the weather is warm and bare feet are an absolute must (no exceptions - it is the law), these little pods of pain lie waiting for the unsuspecting foot.

In order to appreciate the experience, take a box of 100 bulletin board tacks, toss them all over your family room carpet and then proceed to try and cross the room with your eyes on the ceiling and your feet bare.

So the task I set my kids to was to pick up the piles of the little spiky devils that I raked out of the grass. I was the one breaking my back with the rake trying to extract the little demons from their grassy lairs, but you would think I had assigned them to clean out someone's septic tank with their bare hands with all the complaining they did. All I could do was encourage them to hurry so that we could play a game when we were done.

I finally called it quits after only getting have the front lawn done (a good general always knows when he is fighting a losing battle) and introduced them to croquet. When I was five years old, my neighbor used to invite me over to play croquet all the time during the summer and I had a blast. So I bought a croquet set that I found at a discount store four years ago and it has been collecting dust in my garage ever since (mainly because I have always struggled to keep up with mowing the grass to where it was short enough for us to play).

I brought out the set anticipating all the fun we would have. I figured, being boys, they would love the fact that they got to hit a ball with a mallet. It was perfect ... until my three-year-old decided that the ball was just a little too small and difficult for him to hit so he went after bigger game ... the neighbor kids bike ... the tree ... his brother ... me!!! I guess I should have seen that one coming. I predict he will have a very bright future in house framing. Just give him a hammer and point him in the right direction and he will pound anything you ask him to ... and probably a few things you didn't ask.

We did have a lot of fun, though. My five-year-old had the lead for most of the game with his mom following close behind him, but I managed to shake the dust off my mallet swinging skills to edge them both for the win. (That's right! I've still got it!) At this point the whining and complaining began again as we cleaned up the game and proceeded with the nightly torture session of feeding them dinner. I'm still not sure who is being tortured more - the boys for having to eat delicious, healthy food or the parents for having to listen to them complain about it.

How to Start Your Day with a Positive Outlook

I know there are many people out there like me that don't exactly look forward to going in to the J-O-B every day. Part of it may have to do with having someone dictate to you when you have to work, how long you have to work and what you can and can't do while you are at work. Well, here is a quick, simple process I found on the internet that can help you start your day off with a more positive outlook:

Open a new file in your PC.

Name it as "Boss".

Send it to the RECYCLE BIN.

Empty the RECYCLE BIN.

Your PC will ask you, "Are you sure you want to delete Boss permanently?"

Answer calmly, "Yes," and press the mouse button firmly....

Feel better? Have A Nice Day.

Double Your 2010 Tax Day Refund - Seriously!

Congratulations! You made it to April 16th - the day after Tax Day! You can now rest easy for the next 291 days until you receive your next W-2. I want to share with you a real quick strategy on how to guarantee yourself a refund next year or possibly even double it by April 15, 2010. It is simple, it takes practically no time at all to do and it makes much more sense than what you are currently doing.

The American public have turned the income tax refund into a type of status symbol - the bigger the refund you get, the more forunate you are. What we have forgotten is that the refund is nothing more than the federal government telling you how much of YOUR OWN MONEY you get to keep. And the current average tax refund on individual tax returns is in the neighborhood of $2,345. That means you are giving the government an interest free loan of $45 every single week. Who is the fortunate one - you or the government?

Here is a way to potentially double the amount of money you will have to spend this time next year. The only reason I say potentially is because the tax laws change each year along with people's family size, filing status, etc. But I do guarantee you will have more money to spend next year than you do now by practicing a very simple discipline.

Take the amount of the refund you are receiving or have received this year and divide it by 52. Then round that number to the next highest $10 amount. For the average taxpayer this would equal out to $50. The strategy is simply this, take $50 and put it into savings every week until April 15, 2010. Using a very simple savings account with a 2% interest rate, within one year's time you would have deposited $2,600 and earned interest in the neighborhood of $26.

Some of you may argue that you don't have $50 to deposit each week - I beg to differ. You currently pay an average of $45 every week (more if you count medicare and other deductions) without batting an eye and you still manage to pay your bills. Why? Because it is taken out first!!!

The wealthiest people in the world have become wealthy because they learned the concept of paying themselves first. As soon as you get your paycheck, deposit the $50 first and then live on what's left. You will quickly realize that this isn't very difficult to do. If you are paid biweekly instead of weekly, deposit $100 every two weeks instead of doing it weekly. Just make it the first priority payment of every check.

Here's a way to make it even more exciting. You know you are paying approximately $45 too much each week to the federal government. Meet with you Human Resources/Payroll person of your company and submit a new W-4 so that this $45 will be left in your paycheck. Add this to your deposit and watch your tax day refund grow even faster. By the end of 52 weeks you will have deposited $4,940 and earned interest in the neighborhood of $50.

If someone is going to earn interest on your money, it may as well be you, right? And the best part is you won't have to guess whether or not you are going to get a refund and how much it might be. Just check your savings account to see! And even better, if you happen to end up owing on your taxes next year because of changes in your situation or tax laws, you won't have to scramble to come up with it. Just pay it out of your savings account and pocket the rest.

Doesn't this seem like the more intelligent way to get a tax day refund? I challenge you to give it a try. Let me know if you do!

Now, if you are worried that you wouldn't be disciplined enough to leave that money in the account, especially if an emergency comes up (like that big screen T.V. you have always wanted going on sale at Best Buy), there are simple ways around that, too. For example, open your savings account in a bank that is not convenient for you to get to like, perhaps, one on the other side of town. Set yourself up so that you can only make manual deposits and withdrawals - no debit cards and no online banking. This way you will think twice about making untimely withdrawals.

Remember, this will only work if you leave the money in the account. Treat your savings account as if it was the National Treasury. You can only take out the money on Tax Day 2010 and not a day before!

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

Other ideas on how to increase your refund for next year include:

- Save money by having an experienced and educated friend help you prepare your tax returns and pay them less than you pay a professional tax preparer

- Deposit your savings in an account with a larger interest rate like, perhaps, a money market account or mutual fund. Just make sure it is a low-risk account.

- Educate yourself on the tax deductions available to business owners and the advantages they bring. Start a business next year to take advantage of these benefits. Home-based businesses are a great way to earn extra income and reduce your tax rate!

A Last Minute Tax Tip

April 15 has rolled around again and people all across this great nation of ours will be breaking the sound barrier as they rocket to the local post office in time to get the sacred 4/15 postmark. I wonder if the whole concept of electronic filing came about as a result of postal employees being hit and run over by rushing tax filers trying to beat the midnight deadline.

Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund.
~F.J. Raymond

The tax season is an exciting time of year for most people. It is the one time of the year when the government tells you how much of your own money you get to keep.

Did you ever notice that when you put the words "The" and "IRS" together, it spells "THEIRS?"
~Author Unknown

Personally, I think I should only be held as accountable to my promises to file and pay my taxes on time as the politicians are accountable for their promises to balance the budget, cut government spending and reduce the tax burden of the American public. What do you think?

Today, it takes more brains and effort to make out the income-tax form than it does to make the income.
~Alfred E. Neuman

I have actually thought about making some extra money by writing a book on all the secrets people don't know about filing their income taxes, but I gave up on that dream when I realized it has already been done (not to mention the government would tax the living daylights out of it anyways). It's called The U.S. Tax Code. Unfortunately, very few of has have the super-secret decoder ring that will help us make any sense out of it.

The best things in life are free, but sooner or later the government will find a way to tax them.
~Author Unknown

Now, if you are stressed out tonight trying to finish your taxes and you happen to get stuck, allow me to share this one tip for getting through it ... guess! It works for 99% of the American public when they file their taxes so it may as well work for you, too.

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.
~Herman Wouk

Creating the Perfect Day

The question is not

"Am I better than you?"

The question is:

Am I better today than I was yesterday?
Am I better this week than I was last week?
Am I better this month than I was last month?
Am I better this year than I was last year?

If you can answer "Yes" to the last four questions, you have nothing to fear, nothing to envy, and no apologies to make to anyone!

Found in the Instruction Manual of the Pull Your Own Weight program - a program designed to teach school-aged children to perform conventional pull-ups as a means of naturally eliminating childhood obesity.

It's kind of crazy how you can be focused on something and related resources come along from the oddest places. The last couple of days I have been working in my free time to reinstitute a personal accountability system that I had lost quite a while ago when the battery on my palm pilot died. The original system was a simple spreadsheet designed to help me cope with the many day-to-day things that I always seem to forget or simply did not plan time to do.

As a member of the LDS church, I have been taught since I was a child of the many things that would help me draw closer to God and bring His spirit into my home. They have included morning and evening personal, couples and family prayer; personal, couples and family scripture study; holding weekly Family Home Evenings; serving faithfully as a Home Teacher and in other callings; paying an honest Tithe; keeping a journal on a regular basis; exercising the talents and skills I have been blessed with as well as developing new ones; being a good steward of the financial blessings I receive and more. While I have been good in all these areas individually at different times in my life, I have never been consistently good at any of them for any length of time. I make a good effort at doing as much as I can, and I certainly recognize the blessings that have come from those efforts, but I never felt like "good" was good enough.

The Savior admonished us to "Be ye therefore perfect...." (Matt. 5:48) There have been years when I can honestly say that I was perfect at paying an honest Tithe, but I don't see any other area in that list where I was anywhere near so perfect. And if I can't be perfect in these simple and easy areas, then how can I possibly hope to be perfect in the more difficult ones such as forgiving an offender or loving an enemy.

A large part of my imperfect living I can honestly attribute to lack of focus. A list that large is somewhat overwhelming and it seems like it would take getting up in the early, early hours of the morning and staying up to the late hours of the night just to accomplish it all. But, as busy as my days generally are, I realize that there are times throughout the day that I could work on being more perfect in these areas. But I don't think of these types of things during those moments and spend that time on far less fulfilling activities. It just wasn't on my radar. This is what drove me to develop my personal accountability spreadsheet in the first place and to, more recently, create PAS 2.0 (Personal Accountability Spreadsheet version 2.0).


The spreadsheet became a visual reminder of what my personal goals were each day and became a visual "yardstick" for measuring my level of perfection in those areas. If I engaged in personal scripture study for the day, I would highlight the box under the day's date for that category showing it as complete. Inside the box was a number "1" with the text colored the same as the highlighting color so you couldn't see it. At the bottom of the sheet, I plugged in a formula to add up the ones and give me a percentage of perfection for the day. Some of those goals would have a minimum time associated with it, such as 30+ minutes of Piano Practice. If I could only get in 15 minutes of practice, I would still highlight it and change the "1" to "0.5" so that I would still give myself credit for making the effort.

I made some improvements to the concept with PAS 2.0 to help me better identify the areas that I needed to focus more on. I added a perfection percentage to the right of each goal tracking area so that I could see each month how perfect I was in each individual category. I also added a summary tab that would summarize my performance for each goal each month and give me an overall percentage of perfection for the year. This also enables me to see how I have improved in each category throughout the year. I have added a little bit of psychology by using various colors for the different goals categories rather than one color for all of them. I know use blue (peace, tranquility, confidence) for my personal growth goals, red (love) for goals that involve my wife, yellow (joy, happiness, hope) for goals that involve the whole family, green (money, renewal, generosity) for my financial goals, and orange (balance) for my miscellaneous goals that include the enjoyment and development of my talents.

I know this is all a bit "nerdy", but it helps me become a little more perfect today than I was yesterday. One thing I have learned over the years is that sometimes things in life improve simply by the act of observing them. This is especially true of human beings. Think about how much more animated and energetic children are when they know someone is watching them. We have a subconscious drive to do our very best when we know someone is watching our performance.

I know that I have a little bit of a competitive streak and the one person I love to outdo more than anybody else is myself. PAS 2.0 provides the healthiest competitive environment I have ever experienced. If there are 22 tasks that I want to accomplish in a given day and I only manage to do 15, I am highly driven to become a little more perfect by scoring a 16 or 17 the next day. If I manage to have a "perfect" day, I work hard to see how many consecutive "perfect" days I can manage.

I know some of you are probably freaking out over the fact that I have 22 tasks that I want to accomplish each day. To be honest, there are actually 25 - some of them just happen to be once a week and others are only every couple of days. But out of those 25 tasks, some can be done in as little time as anywhere between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. They are small disciplines that I need to do more consistently in order to live a happier, more prosperous, more fulfilling life.

I have also included tasks in here that I don't necessarily want to get done 100% of the time. Goals such as daily scripture reading, prayer, exercise and others are definitely the ones I want to become 100% perfect every day. But some goals, particularly those that allow me to enjoy my talents more, I just want to do more often than I currently do. Those include playing the piano, writing creatively, posting on my blog and doing artwork. So, if I score a 91% for the day meaning I accomplished 20 out of 22 tasks because I didn't do any creative writing or work on any artwork, that is still a perfect day for me. I did those tasks that were most important and I exercised and developed some of the talents that add to my joy and fulfillment. To me, that is perfection.

If you haven't already, I encourage all those who happen to read this to identify areas in your life that you would like to become a little more perfect in and develop a plan and tools for measuring your progress. If you are willing to embrace your inner nerd and want a copy of PAS 2.0 for your own personal use, feel free to e-mail me and I will send you a copy.