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Two ways I paid the Stupid Tax

I wasn’t sure how to illustrated the whole stupid tax concept, so, um, here’s this.

I’ve actually never read any of Dave Ramsey’s books, but quite a bit of his stuff floats around the blogosphere; enough for me to pick up on his Stupid Tax concept (which is basically any really dumb financial decision you make).

It’s always fun to read about other people’s stupid decisions, so I thought I’d share two of mine.

1. BlueHost

(which I never used)

I used Dreamhost to run this blog, and a few years back, their service got kind of hicuppy. I was pretty patient about it at first, but after a really bad week, I got frustrated and signed up with BlueHost. I think I paid $100, which would have covered a year’s worth of hosting*.

*that was when my blog was a lot smaller…$100 doesn’t even cover one month’s hosting now.

I know Bluehost is a good company and I knew the service would be good.

What I totally underestimated, though, is how complicated it would be to move everything from Dreamhost to Bluehost. I can do some back end things on my blog, but this was over my head.

This would have been no big deal if I’d had my wits about me enough to cancel my BlueHost package in the first 30 days. But somehow, that deadline slipped right by me, and so I ended up paying for a year of hosting that I never even used.

Anyway, Dreamhost has stepped up their game and I’ve had very little downtime in the last year or two, so I’ve decided to just hang out where I am.Although, now that I think about it, I might be paying a stupid tax by not shopping around to see if another web host could offer me a better price. If I could save a lot of money on my hosting, I could even pay someone to do the dirty work of moving my blog.

Hmmm.

2. A Slideshow Program

My photo-editing software library pretty much consists of….Picasa.

And that’s all.

(I am sooo professional.)

Picasa does have a feature that allows you to make picture slideshows with music, but it was lacking some features that I wanted. And when my niece was stillborn (more on that story and the happy ending that came a few years later), I really wanted to make a lovely CD slideshow for her mom and dad, using the pictures I’d taken.

And at that point, I thought I wanted to spend more time doing photo sessions (I have since changed my mind), and I figured it would be a good tool for building my photography business.

So, I paid for the software (I think it was $100. My stupid taxes seem to always be $100!), and got to work, only to realize that the software only let you make slideshows to share on the web.

Oops.

I did eventually end up figuring out how to make Picasa do what I wanted it to do, so I gave my sister-in-law a CD slideshow after all, and I also made a scrapbook of the pictures.

In that sense, it all worked out fine in the end, but I do try to be a little more careful to pay attention to what I’m buying now!

So, there you go…two dumb things I did with my money.

Care to embarrass yourself along with me? Feel free to leave a stupid tax story of your own in the comments. 😉

___________________

P.S. Gina is the winner of the $75 Cozy Wall Art giveaway. Congrats, Gina!

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Jan Elizabeth

Saturday 25th of January 2014

My most recent one is discovering that I'd left the floor tiles in my bathroom heating for almost a year! All because no instructions came with the device when we moved in here, and I couldn't figure out if it was on or off. If I'd gone online and looked up the instructions when I we first moved in, I could have saved a year's worth of tile-heating (including all summer, when cold tiles would have been kind of refreshing...)

Diane C

Thursday 30th of January 2014

Hi Jan, I'm over here with my hand waving in the air. This happened to us, too. Fortunately, it only took two cycles to figure it out. Let me guess - Was yours a short sale with no instruction manuals included??

We still can't figure out why the &^%$# alarm beeps at the same time every day and won't stop until you press the cancel button... I've heard it's something the alarm companies do to goad you into continuing their service, but it sure is irritating and I wonder if it's even legal...

Kristen

Sunday 26th of January 2014

Ooh, bummer! And yes, cold tiles are awesome in the summertime. Not so much in the winter, though (we don't have heated tiles.)

Mrs. GV

Monday 11th of November 2013

We just had our septic located and pumped for around $500. They had to pull part of our deck up to get to it (stupid tax caused by people who originally owned the house.) When it came time to pay, I asked did they take credit card because hey, why not earn points since we pay it off each month? Yes they did, so I gave over my card and signed my name. My stupid tax: Not reading the fine print, which stated there would be a % fee for using credit card. Ugh. They are a local, very reputable company, and it was written right there by where I signed my name.

Melissa

Wednesday 6th of November 2013

My biggest stupid tax came after a visit to the library. I was a new mom and as I approached my car with baby in car seat carrier, diaper bag, and stack of books in tow. I set my stack of books on the car roof and proceeded to load my baby boy into the car. Then I proceeded to drive home . . .

When I arrived home I could not find my library books. (DOH!) I rushed back to town (20 minute drive back) and found my books scattered throughout the snowing, slushy streets leading to the library. One was unscathed, two had telltale tire marks over a two-page spread, three were . . .well . . . unrepairable.

Stupid tax = buying books I destroyed before reading.

Kristen

Wednesday 6th of November 2013

On the other hand, at least you put the most precious cargo in the car! ;)

Diane C

Tuesday 5th of November 2013

I'm sure I'm doing something stupid right now that I haven't even realized yet...

My take on this subject is the same as the one I hold for parking tickets. Try not to get them, but if it happens, just pay it quickly and forget about it. No one is ever going to get every.single.thing.right, so why beat yourself up? If you have a steady frugal lifestyle, a little bobble here or there is not going to break you. Some of these comments are indeed doozies, but overall, everyone deserves a pat on the back for keeping their "stupid" stored in a small, (repurposed) container.

kris

Tuesday 5th of November 2013

I have been too tired/busy to get my lunches fixed for the week, so yesterday and today I will have to purchase my lunch at work. I WILL make it tonight (for the remainder of the week)!!!

Even tho it has cooled down considerably in the evenings, I still haven't shut down my a/c. Another thing I need to do tonight.

:(

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