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Merry Christmas Eve. packing the house with GK families and a few aunts and uncles. It’ll be crazy, big late lunch and then late dinner with leftovers before everyone heads home for Xmas morning. We get clean up but will catch up with the kids tomorrow PM. Hope you have a great day with your families.
Happy New Year Ryou,
I had the whole Christmas to New Year’s off. So I did not log in here. I hope your Christmas was very happy even with such a full house. We had 4 of our 6 kids for Christmas so that was good. It was great.
I was able to get rid of all the maple rounds that were left over from a tree cutting. They were very heavy. The main guy that took it had a transmission jack that we used to get them into his pickup. Grateful no bones got broken!!
Looking forward to retiring maybe this year so I’m getting a bit optimistic. So I’m looking forward to a good year word.
mspart
I got to live that final year twice. It was during COVID when the majority were working from home. I was supposed to terminate in 2020 when COVID hit. The plan was to indoctrinate my replacement with my clients, but that was all shot up when they instituted a hiring freeze. They asked me to stay an added 6 months, then another 6 months when the situation wasn’t improving.
There will be times when you think about staying a bit longer. Then there will be days when you wish it was last month.
Indeed. I remember when my Dad retired, I asked him if he would go back on contract and continue. And he said he was thinking about that. About 3 months went by and I had heard nothing. So I asked him if he was still thinking about going back. He said and I quote: WHY WOULD I GO BACK TO THAT PLACE!!!!! I figured that he had made the transition and laughed. Good for him. He was the type that believed if he wasn’t there, the company would fail. I guess he figured it would be ok.
I have reached my 401k goal and will be talking to a financial planner here this month with my wife. I had the last 2 weeks off and it was really nice to be able to do things and get things done around the house. Hard to go back, but here I am!!
mspart
The one concern I always had before pulling the trigger was, what am I going to do? Wifey settled that. We were in a townhouse. The first year was OK, I renovated the inside but had no maintenance to do outside. Coming off 2.5 screes, that was a lot of free time. The first year was fine, probably because I was bust renovating the interior. Once zi finished and started realizing what was going on around us with HOA and neighbors, we wanted out. MY wife found a place, put the townhouse up for sale, sold it in one day and bid on the hose she found. 30 days we are in a new reno job. I’ve been out for 4.5 years now and I’m still working on it. But, I’m not bored and not sitting around putting on weight.
Yes, that’s the key. Gotta keep busy. We are not in that situation. We are in the house that our kids consider their house. Been here 20 years. However, WA is considering an income tax even though that is patently against the state constitution. The State Supreme Court doesn’t feel constrained by silly little things like that. So it may be that we will need to remove ourselves out of state. We have 1.25 acres and there is plenty to do just to keep it all going. I’ve thought mentoring HS kids in math and science might be a good thing to do with any other time. Perhaps work with my son in his business. It is a big decision for sure.
mspart
We’ve had an income tax for years. I don’t recall not paying a state income tax. It’s basically a flat tax with the exception they amended it about 10 years ago to allow for medical expense deductions, insurance costs + out of pocket expense. 2.25% up to $1,000,000 and 7.5% of income over $1M.
NJ also has an Exit Tax that applies if you sell and leave the state, 2% of the home value, or 10.5% of the equity, whichever is greater. That’s a big chunk of change to escape., especially for older folk that have lived in the home for many years. Flip side it recently adopted 2 property tax relief programs for Seniors. The 1st freezes property you property tax for as long as you own that home. We just qualified for it as you have to live in the dwelling at least five years. I’ve owned homes here for 45 years and we just qualified because of that caveat. The 2nd, Stay Property Tax; this is the 1st year, provides a 50% rebate on property tax. For 2026 we only 50% of the tax assessment as long as your retirement income remains below a specific value. I have to be careful about the value of our 401 withdrawals as that income could disqualify us. Combined, it makes it a difficult decision to move out of state.
Here, they are pushing people out. They raise taxes only, no reductions. No discussion of “we are raising this so we will reduce that”. It is only upwardly mobile. Last year taxes were raised 9 Billion, the largest in state history and this is due to ever increasing spending.
mspart
Back in 2021, the incumbent governor won his reelection by 2% points. That was a huge change from when he won his first term at 13% margin. Research showed nearly 100% of those 60and older voted Republican to get him out. It took him 4 years and not surprisingly in October just before this year’s election that he announced the 50% property reduction. His replacement won by 10% margin with many of those that tried to oust him returned to side with his replacement. The exodus out of NJ because of all of the taxes has been significant over the years, led by retirees.
So this property tax relief program for seniors is a hefty expense to the state this year. At the same time, the state cut municipal school funding upwards of 20%. That put a real hurten on school budgets. Schools have had significant reductions in teaching staff and still coming out with a budget shortfall. I suspect zi k now how they funded the property tax relief programs.
For the schools, they don’t need to lose teachers, they need to lose all the support staff. That is where the increased charges are held.
mspartEvery town has its own administration and there are many towns that only operate grades K through 6 or 8, then contract with the next town over to receive their 0-12 kids. But those small districts still fund a superintendent, assistant superintendent and their support staff. Many are starting to talk about school districts including 3 or 4 small towns. They would share a single superintendent with staff. I’m surprised that none of these school systems operate shared services. For example, they could cut staff while gaining economy scale pricing for purchasing books and supplies.
So our 5 day reprieve of 5 days in the 50’s is over and back into 30’s From Christmas throu9gh last Wednesday we never exceeded 32F. Then a southern front rolled in warming things up a bit.
It seems warmer here. I spent Sat removing old motion sensor lights and installed new ones. Of the two removed, one still worked so I put that on the shed. Unfortunately, I installed it too low and the door can’t close. So I have to fix that. Additionally, the new ones don’t work. So waste of a Saturday.
Our cities generally have their own school districts. In King County, some are giant like Seattle, some are just big like every other one. In our more rural areas in the state we would have similar to what you described.
mspart
Are they new solar lights ? I installed a new solar light for my flag. For the first few days it would only flash, so I called the manufacturer. He told me to wait a little longer for the batteries to fully charge. Sure enough, it took 7 sunny days, but the lights are now working. I have another small light that I’ve had for about 10 years and it’s still working all night long. I assumed the batts would give out after 5 years maybe less, but they’re still as strong as the first night.
Spent the weekend seeing the grands in their athletics. The 4 wrestlers are 45 W’s and 3 L’s combined. The eldest of the 4 is 12-0 with 10 pins. No.1 son’s kids learned how to cradle back in Dec and boy they like using it. Then we went to No. 1 grandson’s hockey game at the Prudential Center. That’s where the NJ Devils play. Every year the Devils invite 4 teams to play a game prior to the Devils game. He had a blast on the rink as the fans filled to arena. When the game was over he changed in the devils locker Rom. They set aside some space to change, and the Devils players were there putting their gear on. He walked out with a tone of photos, autographs, and the Devils gave all a Devils jersey with his name on the back. Sunday we were off to No.1 granddaughters cheer competition. She switched to cheer from gymnastics as it’s less stressful on her knees. She’s light and has great balance from the beam so she’s one of those that get to do the acrobatics while being held in the air. It was a regional meet with teams from NJ, NY, PA and CT and DE and the win qualified the team for the national competition in Orlando. By the time we got home we were knocked out.
Funny you mention the lights. Not solar. But we have lights that light up the deck a little at night. My wife suggested we unplug those and see if the motion lights work. So I did, and the motion lights came on. So they are working, its just that the deck lights produce too much light for the night sensing. I would never have thought of that. I just never considered that those little lights could produce enough light for the motion sensor lights to think it was day time. But there you go. Not a complete waste of a Saturday I guess.
Looks like you have some real tigers for grandkids. I hope you are roughing them up and showing them pops can still do it. Just tell them weight difference means nothing. That’s great. The hockey experience is incredible. I had heard of hockey as a kid (I grew up in north Alabama, not much hockey going on there) and moved to Seattle area in 6th grade. In 7th grade I think we were playing floor hockey and it turns out there was a kid that played ice hockey. He was great with the stick.
Another funny story. My next door neighbor was in Jr high while I was still in elementary school. He came home and wanted to try this new game. We said OK. So we went to a neighbors yard which was pretty big. He said this is like kickball but not really. We asked what the game was called and he said soccer. We played it for a few minutes and all decided it was a stupid game. Nothing like kick ball. Then I move to Seattle in 6th grade and at recess, everyone was out there playing this stupid game called soccer. Ok, not everyone, but 90% of the kids. Half the kids on one side, half on the other. Gang soccer. I finally got over my “not playing in the rain” fear and went out there and had fun. I like soccer but my introduction was kind of a no go.
mspart
Similar story. My wife asked me to put some white lights and wreaths along a fence in the front. No problem, had a nearby outlet. I added a timer and was done with it. The first night they came, then I noticed the solar flag light was out. I started cussing a bit, then realized the light sensor was tricked into sensing there was daylight.
We didn’t have soccer or hockey either, just the large schools offered them. There were maybe 25 schools for each sport. Now the state athletic commission allows schools to combine enrollment and offer sports for schools with students that want to play but there aren’t enough to fill out a squad. Football was one of the first but now we see combined soccer, wrestling, and tennis teams
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