Does this mean Trent bought the brand-name medication instead of the cheaper generic (ibuprofen)?

I second (third) the fact that working from home and small children don’t really mix. My best friend did it, and, like Trent, she had her son in daycare until he was in school and even in an afterschool program after that.

The nice thing is that when the kids are a little older, say 9 or 10, although it depends on the kid, it does allow you to still be home for them and not worry but let them self-direct. But small children and work are usually both full-time tasks.

Q2 : Ben I would look instead at what you do want to do for a career. Your current degree may be useful in many areas and isn’t necessarily a waste. For example, my mother in law has an English degree but that hasn’t limited her career to reading books. She has worked in a variety of office related jobs. If your degree is something like sociology then you won’t just get a job in sociology but it may have many valuable skills that will benefit you in a variety of jobs.

Q5 : NO I don’t think you can simply teach yourself to live with less sleep. People who manage on very few hours are either just rare folks born that way or may actually be suffering from such sleep deprivation.

Q6 : You said you use the netbook to keep your laptop from breaking down. If I were you I would just go ahead and use your more expensive laptop. Computers drop in price so fast that they go obsolete faster than they break down. You already have a nice laptop so I’d just use it. Just use the laptop till it breaks then buy another one. By that time the new laptop would be better and cheaper. It will be cheaper in the long run.
But if you really need 2 computers then I’d go with the netbook or maybe a basic laptop. Tablets simply do not do all the same stuff and are generally more expensive than a basic netbook.

Q9 : Depends on your tax situation and how much you want to do your own taxes. The amount you are spending is reasonable. But if you’re taxes are simple and you don’t mind doing it then you may as well do it yourself. Tax software will do a pretty good job if you want to go that route and the software is fairly easy to use. The real benefit of paying someone else is that they have knowledge of how it all works. The tax software is not smart and could fail to ask you important questions and won’t stop you from doing things wrong. But for the vast majority of people tax software is perfectly fine. If you don’t itemize and only have W2 wages and have no business or rentals or anything like that then doing it with tax software is probably just fine.
Far far too many people are paying HR Block to fill out a simple 1040 with nothing but standard deduction and W2 wages and thats not at all necessary.

When I worked in HR one of the basic rules when we allowed employees to work at home was that they couldn’t take care of anyone during working hours. Not children, parents or ill spouses.

Q6 As a netbook and laptop owner, don’t underestimate the easy and covenience of using a keyboard over going tablet. For those who question the long term ability, a netbook is quite capable of doing the “jobs” that 99% of us use it for, email and consuming media. I used my for photo editing, spreadsheets, and more and it does fine. Don’t knee jerk to think that tablets are necessarily “better”.

Q9 A family member of mine paid a preparer recently instead of using TurboTax. The return was all fouled up. Turbo Tax on their site will even give you a heads up to what type of software suite you “need” for your situation. Most people do fine with the free version/basic if you have basic forms from work and your bank. Stocks are not that tricky and now institutions are doing cost basis in the US going forward. I used turbo tax for my mortgage and it did FINE. The bank statement was clear and concise and there’s nothign special a pro would have given me.

That said, if you feel you have a special circumstance, I would reccommend attempting the free version as a roadmap, then checking with a tax prep service. Every situation IS different, but a majority can do fine with the plug and chug of basic TurboTax.

I however think this will be my last year for awhile paying this guy to do them for me. Why? Well, I’ve massively paid down my mortgages, so I know for 2012, I’d be better off using the standard deduction instead of itemizing. By definition, he can’t find things I can itemize for a better return. And I’ve become savvy enough that he’s not able to give me useful suggestions any longer.

So, if you’re itemizing, and you’re more likely to fall under more scenarios to get itemized deductions, it’s often extremely valuable to do it. My tax guy was getting me an extra $300-400 in returns in the past times I compared. But if your tax situation is straight forward, it may not be worthwhile.

Also, I have learned to add a layer of complexity to help me keep my big picture savings goals more clear. I auto-transfer all of my (bi-weekly paycheck) savings at one time to one ING account. Then I either auto or manually divide up that bulk transfer into the multiple savings accounts that represent all my goals (ex. 50% emergency savings, 25% car repair, 10% Christmas saving, 15% home improvements, etc).

This way i can quickly see how much i am saving per month, and i have less transactions flying between my brick and mortar bank and the ING savings account.

Thanks Trent!