More than I needed to know about budgets

I just got out of a too-long meeting with someone from accounting because I was trying to figure out the best way to pay some research fees. The accountants went off on some waaaaaaaaaay looooooooong tangents, and as a result I know a LOT more about the financial woes of the world, country, state, university, college, and department. Yikes. Things are not looking good for grad students coming down the pipeline here at UBC. I'm very happy (and lucky) to have the security of a graduate research fellowship during this time.

However, I now have to pay taxes on more of my research money thanks to a minor language change. In a nutshell: Instead of getting reimbursed (which is not taxable), the money will go on my 1098-t, which, because my fellowship income is also reported on my 1098-t rather than a W-2, is mostly taxable income.

I also learned that it costs the department about $500,000 to hire a biology professor, and with the current distribution of overhead payments, it takes the university at least 10 years to recoup that startup from grant overhead. I had no idea. Talk about pressure to get big grants!

Post-trip wrapup

I've had three good meetings with Sam since I got back from Ukenzagapia. He has said some very complimentary things about me which has made me happy. I've had a couple of meetings with Leo, who is happy with my progress and told me I need to work on that review paper from ages ago. I had a 5 minute (I'm not exaggerating) meeting with Herb before he took off for Neotropical Field Site. I'll catch up more with him later in the summer, but it's one more example of how Sam is my functional advisor.

Last week I turned in all of my receipts for reimbursement, except one but it's complicated. I'm getting back about $4500. More than half of that goes to my parents, who were kind enough to lend money because I couldn't get advances on the grants. The rest of it reimburses my set-aside-for-taxes account. I was waaay over budget this time on salaries. I'm not sure how much of our personal money we spent this time, certainly more than I wanted to. It seems like I need about $5000-7000 for each 2-3 month trip to Ukenzagapia. That sure does seem like a lot. I don't know yet how I'm funding my next trip.

I submitted a report to the governmental agencies concerned. I was writing that in the evenings after my all-day Wilderness First Responder classes. That was exhausting and it's a relief to have it done. Now I need to focus on my renewal application.

I feel so much better after this field season compared to my first one. I was kind of a wreck when I got back last year, at least as far as how I felt about my research. I'm still not thrilled with the data I collected in that first field season, but at least now I've got other data too. Time to start analyzing!

How did my taxes get so complicated?

This is a horrible year for taxes for me. All I have is a W-2, a 1098-T, and a 1099-INT which seems like it should be easy enough. I have been doing my own taxes for years and I have no clue if I've got it right this year. None. Nada. I don't want to pay someone to do my taxes because I think on principle that I should be able to do them myself, but now I'm just not sure.

The main problem stems from my fellowship and the fact that UBC did not take taxes from my paychecks. Other people in the same situation at UBC have received all kinds of varying tax advice, including some very liberal interpretations of qualified educational expenses. Most of the students ahead of us have not paid taxes on the fellowship. My cohort is totally confused.

Tuition waivers further confuse the picture, though those are clearly qualified educational expenses. But, it appears that my waivers and my stipend both appear on my 1098-T. I have no idea how to interpret my 1098-T.

In addition to the fellowship and tuition waiver confusion, I received $3,000 in grants last year that were given to me personally, not administered by an institution. Apparently these are taxable. I have no idea how to deduct the research expenses that these funds were used for, or if I even can.

I'm 99% sure that I am supposed to pay income tax on all of the above, except for the tuition waiver. However, when I calculate my taxes using one of those online filing services, I only owe about 25% of what I set aside in anticipation of paying taxes. How can this be right?

Why can't I figure this out myself?!?!? Help? Suggestions?

On the bright side, I have only lived in one state this year.

Taxes

I e-filed my taxes in January before I received my 1098-T forms in the mail. I've been thinking that I screwed up my taxes and will have to file a 1040-X so I haven't done anything yet with the refund I received. While putting off doing real work today I decided to get out the forms and actually investigate my blunder. To my delight, I don't think I made a mistake after all!

Now I can think about what I should do with my refund. When I first filed I mentioned here that my return is actually more than I paid in taxes. Should it go in my IRA or should I keep it in ING savings?

I put my toaster in the dishwasher

Jon and I got a few household items from craigslist, including a toaster. Unfortunately, the toaster smelled like sweet, rancid frozen pastries and it wasn't just fixed by cleaning that tray on the bottom. We got it anyways because a toaster is better than no toaster and I figured I could clean it. I did a bit of searching online for people who had done some kind of immersible intense cleaning but I didn't find a whole lot about toasters. I did find someone whose computer was buried in a mudslide so they decided they had nothing to lose by disassembling it and washing it in the sink like dishes. Of course they let it dry for quite a while (at least a month). It worked! So I figured if a computer had a chance of surviving something like that I could try it on my toaster. Unfortunately, I can't find the link back where I read about the computer.

Like I said, the toaster was nasty, and I didn't think the dishwasher alone would cut it. I of course unplugged the thing and soaked it for a while in the sink to loosen the baked-on pastry nastiness. Then I went at it with a bottle brush. I think this was the hardest part because the little heating elements are kind of fragile and I didn't want to scrape them off. I was able to get it mostly clean in the sink, but I decided to put it in the dishwasher because then it would go through a heated dry cycle. I though this would decrease the drying time by getting it most of the way dry in the dishwasher. I still waited a week to try it to be sure it was really dry. It worked! It smoked a bit while it burned off whatever had been washed against the heating elements. It doesn't look new, but it looks and smells a lot better than it did when we got it.

While I'm posting about random stuff anyways, I just did my 2007 taxes online. I am actually poor enough to quality for an Earned Income Credit. I'm not entirely sure how they decide how large my EIC will be, but my deductions were greater than my Adjusted Gross Income so maybe that has something to do with it. The bottom line is that my 2007 refund will actually be $400 more than the amount of taxes taken out of my paychecks. The government is giving me $400 because I earned so little this year. I feel kind of awkward about this like it must be some kind of a mistake, but I checked and double-checked.

In other random news, when we woke up this morning there was ice on the inside of our double-paned bedroom window. It's cold outside.