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Philips Digital Picture frames are the coolest and most functional gadget I have seen in a while.
If you explore my website, you'll realize that I don't do many "Product Reviews". Other people do a good job at reviews, in general, and I usually don't see the need. However, now and then, a product will jump out at me that I have to talk about. Philips digital picture frames are so cool. When I started looking into these frames a couple of years ago, they were just too expensive for me to consider. Recently, I decided that I would look again, because I thought it would be a neat gift for my aging mom, who lives a good distance away from me and doesn't get to see her grandchildren often.. I thought if I could send her a memory card with the pictures on it, she could just plug it in to the digital picture frame and enjoy the photos. I could then send a new memory card periodically, so she always had new pictures to look at. It is working just like that. When she got her digital picture frame from me for mother's day, she was very excited. I have since bought one for my father-in-law also.
So let me tell you about the Philips digital frame and why that is the one you should buy. There are many manufacturers of these frames now. Some even play MP3s. I don't want my picture frame to play music. I wanted it to do one thing. Show me the pictures on the memory card and be very simple to operate. Philips digital frames met both those requirements. Why Philips? Because their screen resolution is about twice the competition. For example, the model I have in front of me is 7FF2FPA. There are many different sizes and models. This one is basically a 4 X 6 photo size. It looks awesome! The reason it looks so good is screen resolution. The resolution on this one is 720 x 480. If you look at some others, say the Coby DP- 758 , you will see that it is 480 X 240. It doesn't take math major to understand that the resolution is about half. This is the same concept as "high definition" TV. The more information, in this case "pixels", the better the picture looks.
Philips brand digital picture frames are the best I've seen and Amazon.com has probably the best info and selection. I do like Amazon.com because you can go there and get so much information on any particular item you may be interested in. Also, read the reviews on the Philips digital frames and you'll find that most people are very happy with them.
With Father's Day coming soon, it would make a great gift for a father! One reason we wanted to get this for my father-in-law, is that he takes a lot of digital photos, but doesn't really know how to use the computer. Often, the photos just stay on the memory card, and no one gets to enjoy them. With this picture frame, he can just pop the memory card out of the camera, and put it in the frame. That's it. The slideshow starts immediately! I love it!
Do you have a Philips digital picture frame? How do you like it? Have you used other brands? Leave a comment here and tell us all about it!
I am sure you know someone who would want this for a gift. Maybe even for you!
Buy this Frame at Amazon right now!
UPDATE - May 9 - My last 2 digits are 37, and I just got the direct deposit today, May 9.
Everyone has been asking "when will I get my stimulus check?" Below is a table that the IRS put out recently, telling us when we can receive the Direct Deposit or check. The Tax Stimulus Dates are now announced.
Breaking news April 25
Stimulus payments starting early
Treasury Department says it will deposit the first 800,000 payments four days earlier than expected in effort to boost economy. I cannot find a change to the schedule published on the IRS site though.
Below are the schedules for the stimulus payments related to tax returns processed by April 15, 2008.
If you want the whole stimulus explained in simple terms, read my post here called, "Tax Rebate Stimulus Details Explained".
Read the Bible for some real peace.
1 John 5:4
for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. New International Version (NIV)
Stimulus Payment Schedule for Tax Returns
Received and Processed by April 15
| Direct Deposit Payments |
| If the last two digits of your Social Security number are: |
Your economic stimulus payment deposit should be sent to your bank account by: |
| 00 – 20 |
May 2 |
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21 – 75
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May 9
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76 – 99
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May 16
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Paper Check
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| If the last two digits of your Social Security number are: |
Your check should be in the mail by: |
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00 – 09
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May 16
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10 – 18
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May 23
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19 – 25
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May 30
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26 – 38
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June 6
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39 – 51
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June 13
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52 – 63
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June 20
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64 – 75
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June 27
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76 – 87
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July 4
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88 – 99
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July 11
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Here is a link the the Tax Stimulus dates and info from the IRS site.
The question is, what are you going to do with this money? The Government is betting that you will just go out and spend it. Will you? To stimulate the economy, this money needs to be spent right away on goods and services.
I do realize that some who get the money, will have to use it to pay for food and shelter. I don't want to seem uncaring in that regard. Food and shelter have to come first in any family budget. ( Thanks to a couple of comment's below, to remind me of this.) I have ate my share of beans and cornbread. Actually , I grew to like it as it was a routine food down on the farm.
I will be putting this money toward a loan I took out to help pay for one of my son's college tuition. That is not going to help the Government achieve their goals. Sorry Uncle Sam.  You can use this money to start that Roth IRA. See my post on 16 Roth IRA Facts and see all the reasons why you have to get that going.
Do you know who is your beneficiary on your Roth IRA? I hope so, and I hope you understand who it should be. Some of the most important benefits of a Roth IRA over a standard IRA are the tax benefits to your heirs. If you have not named a beneficiary for your Roth IRA, then the proceeds will likely go into your estate. This will then be paid out of your estate in accordance with the will and the laws in your state. It will likely be settled and paid to the heirs quickly. So that will be the end of the tax free earnings for your heirs.
On the other hand, most people do have a beneficiary named for their Roth IRA, and it is usually their spouse. This is much better than letting it go into your estate. This way, the IRA is allowed to be commingled with your spouse's own Roth IRA and the mandatory disbursement rules would be based on the spouses life expectancy. There is much more you can learn at the IRS site concerning disbursements for beneficiaries.
Name your IRA beneficiary now and keep a copy of the accepted "signed" form in your house with your will or somewhere with all your important papers. You must be able to prove you have named the beneficiary and in some cases the Roth IRA account managers have lost the form or forgot to transfer it, etc. Trust me, keep a copy to back this up.
You can also name a secondary beneficiary, so in case the primary has died before you, it would go the them. The secondary is usually your children, but you must name them. Actually , depending on how much you have in your Roth IRA , you may wish to apportion some to your children as a co-beneficiary. This will allow them to extend the tax-free earnings based on their age and life expectancy, and will reduce the total amount in your spouses estate. This can be very important as you approach a total estate of 2 million dollars. Everyone can pass 2 million dollars to their heirs , estate tax free, but every dollar over that amount is currently taxed at 45%. OUCH!
Imagine if you had $2.5 million. $2 million would not be taxed, but your heirs would lose $225,000 dollars of the other $500,000. That would not happen if you plan properly. Take the time to learn this stuff.
Bottom line is the beneficiary form is like a will for your Roth IRA. Be sure you have one.
This web site offers general information for managing personal finances and does not recommend specific financial actions. For financial advice tailored to your situation, please contact an expert such as a CPA or a personal financial advisor.
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I usually write about taxes and retirement and such, but the joy of paying taxes only comes if you have a good income. I see so many young people today who are "uncertain" why they are going to college. Here is a list of just a few good reasons to go to college. Some people may also just need some reassurance that college is the right thing to do.
1. All extra education you get after high school, improves the chances that you'll earn good pay in your life. As it happens, most college graduates earn a significantly higher amount of money than those who don't go to college. If you are not certain what career to pursue, just jump in to one and keep reading and thinking about what you want to do.
2. Education beyond high school gives you a lot of other benefits. There is so much maturity that occurs when in college. You may also meet lifelong friends and maybe even your spouse in college. You will also have many more "new" opportunities to explore that you would not have if you did not attend. I am very proud of my degree from VA Tech. I also have a lifelong kinship with those who have graduated from VA Tech.
3. Having a college degree will make it much more likely that you will always have a job. There are some studies that that say by 2028 there will be 19 million more jobs than there are educated people to take them.
4. Education after high school is more important for this generation than any before. Technological advances have caused many jobs to require a college diploma. Most businesses want to hire someone with a proven history of solving problems. You learn how to solve problems in college.
I hope if you needed encouragement , you got some.
College is not the key to happiness, by any means. College is a key, though. It is likely a way to equip yourself for some success. It gives you a good start. Learning must be a lifelong thing, though.
I have continued to learn and am learning right now about monetizing websites. See my other websites if you are interested in buying an airplane or want to read news about healthy skin.
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There are many things to think about when planning to retire. You need money to retire, not age. That is one thing, but there are a few that aren't totally concerned with money. Here is a list of 5 things you need to consider before you decide to retire, and if you should retire early.
1. Health Status
Being diagnosed with a chronic health problem or a debilitating illness should greatly influence your decision as to when to retire. If you are in excellent health, you may decide to retire in order to travel or pursue other interests before any health problems occur. On the other hand, if you have a chronic disease you may want to retire just to "enjoy" some of your remaining time. It can go both ways, a very individual decision.
2. Family Responsibilities
Sometimes the decision to retire will be based on the needs of your family members, for example, grandchildren or aging parents in need of care. Statistically speaking, it is much more likely that women will time their retirement according to family needs. Personally, I want to be able to pay off my kids college bills, before I retire. This will influence the "when" for me.
3. Spouse Retirement Date
When both people are working, the timing can be important concerning retirement dates. If you plan to travel the world with your spouse, it becomes important that your spouse retires when you do. This will usually impact the "when" for retirement. You have to ask yourself, will you be happy at home for a few years waiting for your spouse to retire? Or will this become a friction point in your relationship?. This is very important to consider.
4. Contact with Others
Having contact with others, be it family, friends, or co-workers can be an important consideration when you are deciding when you can retire. You may have many friends at work, that you will not see nearly as often. Are you ok with that? Have you developed friendships outside of work? If not, maybe you need to make that a priority now. Women, in particular, who have worked outside of the home, frequently report missing their work-related friends once they retire. Men probably just don't "report it", but also likely miss the relationships that they had. As I talked about in It Takes Money to Retire Not Age, it may be important for your retirement years to develop a new hobby and a new group of friends as well.
5. Financial Resources
We have to admit the obvious here. It takes money to retire. Your financial status and security will significantly impact your enjoyment of those retirement years. First, those with more money will likely have more opportunities. Second, being financially "able" makes it likely that you will have a comfortable and safe place to live. Finally, quality healthcare will always cost more and be more accessible when you can afford it. As the Bible says, money is not the root of all evil. The Bible says, the Love of money, is the root of all evil. Money won't make you happy in retirement, but the lack of it may make you unhappy.
You may notice I did not say anything about investing in a Roth IRA. Okay, now I did. Shameless, I know, but the Roth IRA is so important.
You can also subscribe to my posts by email, so you won't miss a thing. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment here for all to see. Add to this post and make it really good. I am sure we could make this really "25 things to consider before retirement."
It takes money to retire. Most of the time , you hear people talking about retirement "age". Age really has little to do with it. Money is what you need to retire. You may retire right now if you can afford it. But before you think about how much money you will need, there are other things to consider.
If you retire, what are you going to do? Why retire if you don't have anything to do? It might be that in preparing for your later years, you need to develop a passion for some other things. Some people already know what they will do. Say you have always wanted to donate your time at your church or maybe you already have a hobby that you want to put a lot of time into. That's great. You're ready from that aspect. If you don't know, start discovering it now. I just started to learn how to play golf. At 49, I decided I really wanted to learn, and I am learning. ( Wow, it is so much harder than I thought it would be).
Okay, how much money do you need to retire? I found this quote from over at Thirdage.com, from an article.
"Drew Denning, vice president for the retiree services division at the Principal Financial Group in Des Moines, Iowa, said boomers also need to "make sure your nest egg is at critical mass."
He noted that studies by the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, D.C., and other groups have found that a majority of Americans haven't saved enough and haven't tried to estimate retirement expenses.
Denning's quick formula: Figure that you'll spend in retirement between 70 percent and 100 percent of what you do before retirement. Subtract your Social Security benefit. Subtract your pension, if you've got one. Say the result is that you need an additional $50,000 a year. Multiply that number by 20 to 25, which begins to approximate the number of years you'll likely live in retirement. In this case, your nest egg needs to be at least $1 million to maintain your lifestyle. "
I can't really agree with some of that. It all comes down to your individual circumstances. For example, are you going to still be paying a mortgage? If so, you could refinance it, but maybe you really need to work to pay it off. I don't think it is reasonable to suggest you will need 100% of what you need will working, but hey, that would be great . Right?
His example expects us to withdraw our nest egg, instead of the "earnings" on our nest egg. I suppose if you have no family and don't care about anyone else, that would work. But a Roth IRA will pay your kids huge and you can leave them a ton of money that way. If you can, I know you would rather do that. What Denning doesn't account for is investing in your "retirement years". He is right that you may need 30 years of money in your retirement. But in his example, you would only need about $600,000 invested in good growth stock mutual funds. That would return you at least 8% , which would be $48,000 per year. His example has you making zero interest and just spending the principal. I don't know how these "experts" make it on that kind of advice.
Read my post on How Much Will I Need to Retire? It will explain in simple terms how your investments could work.
Social Security benefits. You can begin collecting Social Security at age 62, but your monthly check will at least 25 percent smaller than it would be if you wait. You can see the impact on your benefits at the Social Security Web site, www.socialsecurity.gov. Search for the "retirement age calculator" and then click on "age 62 benefit" for the calculation.
All this planning will make you so much more comfortable in retirement and will help assure your children don't have to pay for your retirement. I'll be here digging up more relevant information as we go through this planning together.
As with all my financial or tax advice, I am not advising as a professional and I give no professional legal or tax advice. If you need professional advice, please get that from a CPA or attorney.
You can also subscribe to my posts by email, so you won't miss a thing.
Leave a comment here so others can read and see what you think.
I have often wondered how much I would need to retire and I'm sure you have too. It is a difficult question to answer. In my case, I will be getting a pension from the US Government. That is good, but it adds a complexity to the problem.
The main question that has to be answered first is how much money do you need to live on? This is a deeper question still, because so many things go into that answer. Some things to think about.
Will you have a company subsidized health plan that can go into retirement? If not, this could be a much bigger expense than you are paying now.
Your mortgage payment? Will you still owe on your house? Depending on the interest rates at the time of your retirement, you could refinance and get your monthly payments down. That depends on what your situation is right now. Are you in a fixed rate 15 year mortgage? If not, get one quick. If you will have your home paid off, that is fantastic!
So how much money will you need to have saved for retirement? Dave Ramsey explains it this way, and it finally made sense to me, to hear it explained in such simple terms.
Let's use an example.
In our example, John is retiring with a pension of $40,000 per year. He has determined that he could comfortably live on $80,000 per year. John has been saving money in a Roth IRA for many years. The question is, how much does he need in that Roth IRA? By the way, if you need information on what a Roth IRA is, go to these links for a post I wrote called 16 Roth IRA Facts. According to the way Dave Ramsey explains it, John would need an amount that could return $40,000 per year in gain, leaving the base amount to continue to grow. He says we should plan on 8% - 12% gain, if invested in a good growth mutual fund. Plan on removing 8% to live on, letting whatever gains there are above this continue to compound and protect us from inflation.
Simply written, it looks like this.
We need $40,000 per year so our base amount needs to be $40,000 / .08 = $500,000.
If we have 500,000 and get 8% gain per year, we can remove 40,000 each year and still have the $500,000. Make sense? I hope so. You can see that if we make 10% instead of 8%, the $500,000 will actually increase in value. But some years it may make only 5%. We can still take our regular amount out, knowing that it will likely balance out and actually grow.
Start figuring out what you need now! Get a game plan! If you are in your 30's, you have plenty of time, if you start now. Read How to Make a Million Dollars. If you are older, you may have to work longer than you wanted to, or adjust what you actually "need" to retire.
EDIT: Here is an excel sheet that gives an example, correcting for inflation, what it might look like. If we can get 12% average each year ( and I think that is entirely possible), then we can turn the original $500,000 into 1 million in only 25 years , and still take our 8% each year. A nice way to leave something for your kids!
As with all my financial or tax advice, I am not advising as a professional and I give no professional legal or tax advice. If you need professional advice, please get that from a CPA or attorney.
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In case you didn't see the link at the top, I am giving away my Used Car Buying E-book. This is totally free. No gimmicks, nothing to sign up for, nothing to do but download this free book.
I wrote a series of articles some time ago on Used Car Buying Tips and then decided to make it into a really cool, easy to read book. I want to give it away as it is my first e-book. I know I could make a few dollars selling it on Ebay, or charging $.50 to download. I know it is a useful book and I enjoyed writing it. There are many links in it to all sorts of great and helpful websites.
All I ask is you put in a good word for me on your blog or to your neighbor or however you want. I plan to be here a long time and want to build goodwill with you.
Come back and read my site often. I am currently doing tons of posts on tax issues that I think will apply to many. I just signed up with TurboTax, to be an affiliate with them. ( You will notice I don't do much affiliate advertising, but I can't say enough about their software.) I love to promote something that I have used for years and I have used TurboTax for about 10 years now. In fact, when I first started using them, the software came on floppy disks! They make my tax season so much easier.
Feel free to visit my advertisers if they have something you want. Go to my Amazon store and buy things from there. Have a great day.
Change Counts! Are you changing?
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Email Me! directly. I always answer the emails!
You can find some car auction information here at online auto auction
Often, social security benefits are taxable. It really depends on how much money you make.
You can do a quick calculation to see if any of your benefits may taxable as follows.
1. Add up all your income, including tax-exempt interest income, all income besides your Social Security benefits. This includes any taxable pensions, wages, interest, dividends, etc.
2. Add one half of your Social Security benefits to the number you got in "1." above.
3. Compare this amount to your Base amount. If it exceeds the base amount, it may be taxable. Your base amount is as follows
$25,000 if you are single, head of household, or a qualifying widow(er),
$25,000 if you are married filing separately and lived apart from spouse for all of 2007.
$32,000 if you are married, filing jointly,
$0 if you are married filing separately and lived with your spouse at any time during 2007.
IRS Example from Pub 915. You and your spouse (both over 65) are filing a joint return for 2007 and both received social security benefits during the year. In January 2008, you received a Form SSA-1099 showing net benefits of $7,500 in box 5. Your spouse received a Form SSA-1099 showing net benefits of $3,500 in box 5. You also received a taxable pension of $20,000 and interest income of $500. You did not have any tax-exempt interest income. Your benefits are not taxable for 2007 because your income, is not more than your base amount ($32,000) for married filing jointly. Even though none of your benefits are taxable, you must file a return for 2007 because your taxable gross income ($20,500) exceeds the minimum filing requirement amount for your filing status.
My point in writing this is to help you get to know the rules about whether you owe taxes on Social Security. It can get a little complicated, depending on your specific situation, so I would advise you to seek professional advice if you need to understand it better. Tax software , such as TurboTax, will likely do all this for you and make your life so much easier than trying to read all the tax publications and such from the IRS. I have been using TurboTax for many years and I highly recommend it.
Also, if you normally do not need to file a return, be sure to read my post on the Tax Rebate Stimulus Explained. It explains why this year you will want to file a tax return even if you owe no money.
As with all my financial or tax advice, I am not advising as a professional and I give no professional legal or tax advice. If you need professional advice, please get that from a CPA or attorney.
Talk to me! If you you have something to say about this , let the world know by leaving a comment. I want to hear from you. If you think this information is helpful, please submit it to one of the sites like Digg.com or Stumbleupon.com .
Email Me! with any other questions or comments.
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I did a post a while back on my Live Streaming Camera that I have located outside my house and I thought it was time to update that a bit. I think I have one of the better PTZ webcams on the net. You may be interested in more of the details about this camera and how I put it all together. You see, I am a hacker. A good hacker, that is. I like to take stuff apart, re-use old stuff that others might throw away, etc. My outside camera is no different. It is an old video conference camera made by Polycom, model PTZ-2N, that has long since been replaced with “better” ones. Some other hackers before me figured out how to connect these cameras to a serial connection on the computer to control them. The camera specs include a 10X optical zoom lens that makes it really nice to use outside.
Of course, the camera was never meant to be outside, so it took some waterproofing. I found a clear ice bucket on the web , and used that as my enclosure. I found another guy doing this with the ice bucket, but I have lost his website address. It cost me $25.00. By the way the camera costs about $25.00 as well on Ebay.
I have it mounted under the overhang. It stays dry so far. I am using BDLCAM software to run the user interface. This software is free from Brian at BDLCAM. Pay his site a visit for more info.
I use Ustream.tv to stream the video. Ustream is very fast and has almost no lag. Lag is very important  when controlling a live streaming camera over the web. You will notice that my camera has very little lag from the time you click on a control to the time the camera reacts.
I am working on the focus. The camera is very good with the auto-focus, but the ice bucket enclosure causing some weird distortions that the auto-focus can’t compensate for. This causes the focus to be much less clear than it could be. I am searching for a better, optically clear  enclosure, but I don’t wan to pay much for it, so I may be searching for a while. If you have any ideas on a better enclosure, please leave a comment or Email Me!.
The other improvement I want to do is to add sound. I just need to run the wiring for a microphone, but haven’t got to it yet. 
Anyway, that’s it. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them here. Be sure to visit the Live Streaming Camera page and have fun with the cam.
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About Mack
Sometimes counting your change is a great money maker. A play on words - how YOU change is what counts. Helping you make wise financial decisions and helping you keep more of the money you make is what this site is about.
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