Herps To The Rescue

The plan is that tomorrow when I go to the Long Island Herpeto- logical Society's monthly meeting, I'll bring along three Spotted Pythons, and five Bearded Dragons, all of which will be for sale. I can only hope the Spotted Pythons are more cooperative when I am showing them for sale than this one was when I tried to get all of the one pictured here into the photo. The Spotted Pythons were meant to be a breeding project. I had four, but one met an early demise due to an accident. The other three, I think 2 females and a male would have probably produced some future income for me in the form of baby snakes (yes we herpers breed em, sell em or trade em, and others buy em). As it is I am strapped for cash and need it now just the commercial says, so I guess these snakes will be for sale tomorrow. They will not put as much in to my pocket as they would have had they produced babies, but at $125 a pop for these 2 year old pythons, if I sell them, I'll be happy.

I also have 5 young Bearded Dragons, they will have an asking price of from $50 to $75 each. So if I sell everything I have up for sale tomorrow (which is highly unlikely) I'll have at least $575, maybe more. The truth be told, I'll be lucky to sell even one of them at this time of the year (unless of course someone at the meeting tomorrow will have gotten back a nice tax refund). I have not sold anything in a very long time, gave up selling them a while back, but I need the cash or the tax man will be miffed. The saddest thing of all is if I do sell them, the tax man gets it all, and he still won't be happy.

All the best,

Glenn B

The Employee Personal Page...

...is part of the national Finance Center's web site; and it allows me to access such things as my pay statement, tax withholding forms, Thrift Savings Plan, financial allotments, my life insurance (obtained through my employer), and so on. It is a good thing because I get to see and adjust many of the financial deductions taken from my pay online. It is not such a good thin though when a knucklehead like me makes the wrong adjustments to some of those deductions, and then winds up short until next pay check. I just did that, and I wound up hitting myself for an additional $279.00 this paycheck (actually direct deposit). That stinks big-time, especially since a lot of extra bills are due We just shelled out about $750 for some needed and long overdue electrical work for our house, need to have a tree cut down for 2 grand (I need to get more estimates, that seem outrageous to me), paid about a grand for new bedroom furniture for my son (or maybe are still paying, I'll have to ask the other half), and got hit with a 2 grand Visa bill; and I have not yet seen American Distress Express. Add to that a tax bill of over $3,000.00 and my head is spinning as I am sinking into debt for the first time in a long time.

Oh well, I just went back into the NFC’s Employee Personal Page, and I again adjusted my tax withholding, y thrift savings, and a bank deposit, so next paycheck I'll only be down about $80 from the last one I received two weeks ago. That will be much more livable than being down almost $280 each pay period. As it turns out, I'll pay about $3,500 more in taxes this year from withholding than I did last year, and hopefully at the end of this year I will not owe a dime. Scraping together the $3,000 plus I owe right now is going to be a pain in the pocketbook. I don't need a repeat next year. Oh well, maybe I'll hit the lotto.

All the best,
Glenn B