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Home > Archive: February, 2012

Archive for February, 2012

iPads, Taxes, Windows and Chase Freedom

February 23rd, 2012 at 03:49 am

My wife has been mentioning wanting an Apple iPad since about December 2011. So on Valentines Day I surprised her with a 16GB Wi-Fi only Apple iPad. I knew I was going to get one for her anyway and wait until the iPad3 was released, but the suggested features wasn't enough for me to wait. So I also purchased one for myself. Our laptops don't hold a charge for more than 15 minuets. Her HP has been serviced numerous times and finally after 7 years, gave up with it. I have a Sony VIAO that has given me more than 6 years of trouble free use, until it fell off the bed a broke 6 of the most used keys . The tabs that hold the key to the circuit board actually broke, so it was not as simple as snapping the keys back on. I used it like that for 3 months, but needed to press many of the missing keys like 10 times before it registered, that was getting really annoying! I mainly used it for Internet anyway. So now I charge it once every 3rd night.

I was able to do our taxes this past Thursday. I did them using the iPad, which worked flawlessly. I used HR Block online being doing NY State was $2 cheaper than TurboTax, Federal was same for both. They got rejected at first due to my wife forgetting to update SS with her new married last name. I had the option of resubmitting with her maiden name. 3 hours later, both federal ans state accepted the return. We are being refunded $2,349 from Federal and $208 from NYS.

We had two of our windows replaced October 2011 due to findings of the leaking during the two tropical storms lof late August 2011. The windows happened to be the two North facing windows in the house. Getting about 4 months of use out of them and seeing how they did in winter months, we were happy with their performance. We had planned on replacing all the windows being they are 1960 original wood windows with aluminum storms windows anyway, but the tropical storms fast tracked replacement. Having done months of research, getting quotes and testing windows we finally went with Marvin Infinity Fiberglass replacement windows. We added colonial grids between the glass, low e366 glass and brushed nickel hardware. Those two windows were $1,800 installed. Yes, a bit pricey, but when we compared them to vinyl windows, these were what we wanted. Knowing we went with the higher cost choice, we knew replacing the windows would be done in stages rather than one shot if we went with the lower cost vinyl windows. So, being stage 1 has been complete (All North facing windows), we decided to reinvest the tax return back into the house. We are replacing all South facing windows with the tax return, 3 windows, which total $2,450. Once those are installed, probably end of March, we should be ready to replace all 3 West facing windows leaving August time frame for all East facing and basement windows. All still continuing to save and maintain our EF.

So today I was reading a blog on here that linked to Chase Freedom card with a $300 sign-up bonus after spending $500, I applied and was accepted. So, stage 2 windows are really going to cost $2,150!