So the last time I used TurboTax, it was all bubbly, asking questions and providing reassurances that we were “almost done”. That’s not realistic. Realism is going to the post office to look bewilderingly through the boxes of paper tax forms littered around the mailbox area wondering which ones apply to you, bringing home a handful of weird-smelling newsprint instruction booklets, and sifting through that shoebox of receipts you’ve been hoarding while you nurse a handle of whiskey and curse the tax reform act of 1986. Professional tax prep software somewhat recreates that vibe. Turbotax is a marshmallow fluff game guide complete with cheat codes.

I am an accountant. This comment is for discussion only and not to be used as tax advice. Consult your tax advisor for your specific situation.

Ebay reports income if you sell over $20,000 [edit: earned in 1 calendar year], and then once you’re on their 1099 list, you don’t come off it even if you sell less. The actual IRS 1099 reporting threshold is just $600 per year. Ebay is appealing to the IRS to try to limit their reporting burden. They will eventually have to report all sellers that exceed $600, but they keep getting that pushed back.

FB also issues 1099s now for sellers. I am not sure what their made up threshold is, but Marketplace has asked me for my tax info. I just took my things down and told it that I hadn’t sold them through Marketplace. And I just noticed what linearchaos suggested… list the item as ‘ask for price’. That may cut down on potential customers though. I know I scroll past items that want me to ask for price.

Do not worry if you sell enough to be issued a 1099. As mentioned before, you can subtract the cost you paid for the items, all ebay and paypal fees, and even shipping costs if you don’t charge separately for it, likely resulting in an overall loss. So no tax likely. Tax is only calculated on net income. If you start flipping obscure items of value from thrift stores, then you might get into taxable net income territory.

Finally, to your question on does it count against your unemployment benefits. Likely. However, Ebay/FB don’t report their 1099 vendors until mid- to late- January 2025 for annual 2024 payments. The reporting deadline is Jan 31. So you don’t have to worry about it until then, and again only if you exceed their made up thresholds for sales.

Surprisingly, yes. The holy grail of magnet fishing enthusiasts are weapons (that are then usually turned over to police).

I haven’t tried metal detecting, but we went magnet fishing once. Caught lots of fish hooks and one mostly rusted but still intact shock absorber.

Dad let me watch Poltergeist when I was 6 and Mom let me watch The Shining when I was 7. I was also 7 when the Thriller video came out, and I think that scared me more.

To someone with ADHD, this is like telling them to just pull ya’self up by yer bootstraps. 🙃

My motivation

When it was first released, The Sixth Sense ending blew everyones’ minds.

Usual Suspects and Se7en as well.

Anything is edible. Once.

I made a Bespin Leia outfit to wear to the opening night of Phantom Menace. On the way to the theater, I got pulled over. The cop was very weirded out by me. I did not get lucky with just a warning.

I have had the train thing happen to me. There were no warning lights where the road crossed over. Fortunately it was a coal train going very slowly. Scared the living daylights out of me. It’s been 30 years since that happened and I’m still neurotic about railroad crossings with poor visibility.

A picture of my grandfather standing next to a woman, taken before he met my grandmother, and she is holding a baby. It didn’t surface until after grandpa’s funeral. It was taken 500 miles away from where my family lives. I live in that other city now. I wonder if I’ve met my half aunt or uncle randomly in passing?

Am Appalachian. This sounds about right.

Squirrels can clean out a feeder pretty quickly. Not as fast as deer can, but much faster than the birds.

So it’s a pain in the ass to go fill it back up, and it costs money. A person gets a bird feeder because they want to watch birds. There are cheaper ways to feed squirrels, if you like squirrels.

Both squirrels and birds can build nests in your home. Squirrels can chew their way into your attic, then you risk them chewing through wires. Birds nest in your dryer vent or bathroom vent. A nest in the dryer vent is a fire hazard. And they can introduce bird mites into your home. It’s like having a bed bug infestation except you can’t see them, their bites are hella itchy, and at least they can be dealt with by multiple rounds of thorough vacuuming. Ask me how I know.

I used to love to keep a bird feeder and watch the bird party on a snowy day. But I wasn’t out to feed the deer, and the mite problem erased any lingering feelings about feeding birds.

Have you tried used vacuums from op shops/ thrift stores/ flea markets?

New vacuums in the budget category are not built to stand up to daily use. It may be worthwhile to look for a secondhand premium brand.

I’ve rescued wasps from the pool as well even though they & I are mortal enemies. 1) it was in the water with me & I didn’t want it considering me a liferaft, and 2) smushing it was not an option. It flew away, hopefully to tell its brothers that I’m worthy of a brief ceasefire.

Hellboy animated a corpse to get info out of it. I don’t think he subscribes to modern jurisprudence though. I don’t recall him being concerned in the least with handing the corpse a subpoena first.

I know, what if we put lasers on the birds!

Puff, puff, pass away

In my line of work, I have worked closely with HR and have been involved behind the scenes in things like this. I have seen PIPs that are fair and actually used as intended, and I have seen PIPs that are so demanding, it’s beyond obvious that they want you to fail so they have an excuse to let you go. Which do you think this one is?

I’m getting the vibe that this is the latter. I am not at all familiar with working under a union contract, but in a hostile situation, I would consider the likelihood of success of going to HR and saying “let’s skip the PIP that you can’t enforce anyway, offer me a reasonable severance, and I’m out of your hair today/this week.”

You don’t need to be running yourself ragged pretending to try to meet their unreasonable demands at the same time as you’re job hunting.