The Pagan Mom Blog

Or at least I am going to try not to have a pity party.

Last week sucked work wise. I took Tuesday as a sick day. I felt bad and slept all day. But I am not sure that I was sick. Then Wed we were closed due to a snowstorm that came plowing through. The snow is killing us here with our work! Thursday I come in to find that my computer was infected with a very bad virus. Amazingly my free anti-virus had “disappeared” and did not protect me. No, it wasn’t AVG (for those that recommended AVG as I tweeted about the situation), it was avant garde if I remember correctly. Hell it was so long ago when we put it on there I don’t remember. So we went to the store and bought McAfee. The guy at the shop was saying we would need to bring the computer in. So we bought McAfee for when it was fixed and to talk to the boss. We tried to fix it ourselves. This virus “XP Internet Security 2010″ had an anti-antivirus program countermeasure. Which means we could get McAfee started on the computer but it wouldn’t configure. So then we tried to turn on the comp in safe mode and we couldn’t do it. We think it was the virus. THEN we managed to get online and I called McAfee for help. McAfee still had not configured but it was on there enough to slow down the virus and let McAfee tech people get remote access and clear it out.  Yesterday at work I decided to go to playlist.com for some soothing music. I clicked “My playlists” and got a popup about Malware and McAfee took over and blocked the attempt. Now I know where I got the virus. I visit daily and after the massive crash 2 years ago I had been VERY careful about where I went. That’s another place to put on the “do not visit” list!

The father in law and I have been discussing the hubs. I am finding out way too much stuff this week and I have renewed anger. Here we go!
1. Not only does he have the Discover card but he reinstated his Mastercard! Both are maxed out!

2. His Mastercard is linked to Google checkout on his phone. He kept saying Alex was buying games on his phone. Been telling me that for weeks and every time I said he can’t without a credit card. At no point did he feel it necessary to tell me that he had in fact put a credit card on Google Checkout. I found out one morning when Alex came out with his phone and I took it from him. I saw his gmail (which he doesn’t use) had dozens of notifications. So me being the nosy wench I am, I looked. They were game receipts with his mastercard number on it. That’s how I found out he reinstated his mastercard. And he is an idiot for putting it on his phone! If it’s stolen or lost and someone gets it, they are going to have a field day trying to shop. And what if he did manage to get the card paid off. Free shopping for the next theif!

3. He is only working 20 hours a week. It’s tax time and he is working 20 hours a week. I know I am not the only one who sees issue with this. He is supposed to be getting corporate taxes done for his dad, whom in turn is having to do them all by hisself. I informed my father in law that he was welcome to fire hubs ass whenever he wanted. I get sick and tired of everyone else busting their ass and hubs does bare minimum because he knows he won’t suffer any consequences. He loses his job I will have him removed from the house. I am that fed up. Unfortunatley father in law doesn’t want to because he knows I can’t afford the kids on my own. And it’s true, I would have a major issue doing it on my own right now. But I am willing to take that risk.

4. Hubs tells the father in law (not me) that he is signing the car over to me. Let me back up for a minute. Our car is not legal. It hasn’t been legal in over a year. His mom recently borrowed the car and got  a ticket. She was pissed off and I don’t blame her. So his solution is to sign the car over to me. Why? Well as my father in law states “So it becomes your problem and not his”. Ok fine. When I get the car, which I told him must be 100% legal before I will put my name on the title, I will trade it in and get a new car that has a smaller gas tank, thus allowing me to afford gas. Now what he doesn’t know is that I will not be allowing him to drive my car. He wants to put more shit on me instead of growing up and being a man, fine. Ok. But he better figure out what he is going to do cause I am not going to allow him to benefit from me. I won’t drive him to work unless I am going to work. And his clients that he has to drive to see every Tuesday, well he isn’t using my car to do it and I am not driving him. He wants to make it difficult for me, I can make it difficult for him.

So with all of this coming up, last night the car started acting up again. He never did take it in to have brakes looked at like he promised 2 months ago. There is a high pitched squealing sound as I drive and then when I hit brakes it goes away, hence why we suspect brakes. As of last night we have a belt slipping. He will wait until it breaks down. Then he will take it to our usual mechanic (whom is no longer as dependable as he was and one I will not take my new car to) and then we will be without car cause hubs has issues with getting a loaner.

So it’s Monday. I am hoping it’s a better week. More hours, maybe some good news. It has to be better than last week!

Maybe I am being too cranky, but I am tired of people still blogging complaints about the guidelines the FTC has imposed on people doing endorsements.  I can understand it after the initial imposing of said guidelines but now it’s just a dead horse. So can we please quit complaining? Seriously?

And too I am looking at this with the accountant’s mind. See the thing is, people seem to think that reviewing products and keeping said products are “free”. The reality is it’s not. First off someone is giving you something in exchange for a service. Income is not just money but the fair market value of anything you receive in exchange for a service. If you don’t do the review, the company more or less is going to want the product back in the same condition it was sent in or the cost of the item. Absolutely nothing in this world is “free”, it costs someone something. If a company sends you an item that they sell for $40, they lose that sale. Assuming a 50% markup it costs them $20 plus shipping costs and then the other $20 lost in sales. Yea, it’s free to you but they are paying for it. And if you review that item they have paid you with that item to do the review.

Now I know some are going to say, “I don’t review that much”. No, some people don’t and there are some people who set out to make it a “career”. However, if you do reviews you should be reporting the fair market value (retail value in this case) as your income. If you do one review a month for items at about $40 a pop, that is $480 in income. May not seem like alot but it can put you in a new tax bracket depending on about 100 different factors (kids, wages, annuities, day care expenses,standard deductions, itemizing deductions, etc etc). Now with FTC guidelines the IRS is going to be looking at bloggers and work at home mom incomes even more. Even moreso now, working from home will become a red flag for auditors to review your return more carefully. This isn’t to scare you, this is just the truth. And don’t get into the mentality that the IRS is going to go after large corporations. First off small business and what I call Schedule C’rs (work from home people) make up the larger portion of businesses in the country. And who do you think will be easier to audit? Yep, the small business. Larger corporations take more amount of time to comb through everything. The IRS is probably going to go for what is easier and less time consuming.

Lastly, I have to say you should be VERY careful about announcing on your blog or twitter that you won’t be including the info on your return. I have already witnessed this once…dangerous stuff. The IRS offers rewards for people reporting others who are committing tax fraud (ie: not claiming all sources of income). And announcing it on your blog or twitter can make it very easy to locate you. Nothing is hidden well on the internet!