#ugh man i love my job but.... the benefits are crap and the pay is crap and i have a fucking masters degree in my subject man

[consultingsister-a5]

i have a meeting on Thursday to discuss my pay rise AGAIN after getting it turned down the first time and i may have just applied for a job that's like twice my current salary just so i have that in the back of my mind when i speak to The Man

[screamingatanemptyroom]

Story 100!!

Hey Everyone! This is my 100th short story on Tumblr! Hooray! Thanks to everyone who has read anything I’ve written, you guys are awesome!

This story is a continuation of several short stories. Many of my urban fantasy stories are set in the same world, and the main characters in fact know each other. It’s not necessary, but I recommend reading those short stories linked here to really appreciate what happens in this one. 

First is Grace, a girl who works at a coffee shop and goes on a date with the son of the devil when Hell freezes over.

Second is Jennifer, a fairy cop who is working on a series of grisly murders by dark fae.

Third is Virginia, a werewolf doctor who faces a vengeful ghost on a plane.

Finally, a side story for Arcadeus, son of the devil, when he was a kid dealing with shared custody and visiting his father. 

This was different from stuff I’ve done before. A lot harder to be honest. I really do like these characters and wanted to give them a chance to continue their story. I hope you guys like it! 

Grace

It was a busy time at Witches Brew, the coffee shop where I worked. 3 am was our rush hour, when all the things that went bump in the night (at least the ones not getting drunk across the street) came in for a cup of coffee.

“You look delicious, human…are you on the menu?” The zombie customer was fairly articulate for one of his kind, and only partly rotten, but the breath…ugh. That wonderful combination of graveyard with a heavy dose of ethanol. I waved a hand in front of my face in hopes of improving the smell and shot back.

“I’m not a human, and you couldn’t afford me even if I was on the menu.” I pointed to the sign behind me, which listed the types of coffees and various prices. “You can order coffee, which is fresh brewed and awesome, by the way; or you can leave.”

The zombie’s eyes narrowed and it licked its lips with a swollen purple tongue.  “You sure seem human.” He leaned forward to smell me.

I sighed and gave a shrug. I was only willing to put up with so much crap from customers in the name of good service. I held up a small handful of salt and blew it gently into his face. With a shriek of pain he clawed at his yellow eyes and ran out the door, cursing the entire way out.

“Have a nice night!” I called cheerfully after him, before returning to cleaning the counter, making sure to restock my emergency salt stash. I hadn’t been lying when I said I wasn’t human. I was the non-magical daughter of a genie and a human, which came with the perk of being part of an underground culture, with the unfortunate caveat that I was mortal and actually couldn’t perform magic. This left me with the sad necessity of being prepared in other ways to deal with the occasional drunken idiot that waltzed in here thinking I was a free snack.

“Grace, you jerk! Why don’t you ever call?!” The loud voice across the café turned a few heads, but despite the sarcastic tone I couldn’t prevent the grin from spreading across my face.

“That because SOME people are workaholics and live at the hospital 24-7.” I called back at her, getting started on her favorite coffee drink: a mocha-latte with a dash of hot sauce.

One of my best friends in the world, Virginia, was an ER doctor, and one of the most awesome people to walk on this planet. She waltzed up and leaned against the bar, motioning for me to hurry up.

“Come ON, girl, I seriously need the caffeine tonight.”

I took a closer look. Her normally tanned skin was paler than normal, and dark circles ringed her eyes. Even her scrubs seemed to hang a little looser than normal.  

“Is everything ok? We’re not near a full moon or something are we?” I was only half joking. Virginia was a werewolf, even if her current ties to the pack were a bit tenuous.

She gave me a tired smile. “No, I just had the worst plane flight ever and followed it up with a double shift at the hospital. She sat in a nearby stool with a sigh.

“A terrible flight? Want to talk about it?”

She answered with a brief shake of her head. “Nope, gotta wait for Jennifer. She’s meeting us here and I’m not telling the same story twice.”

We didn’t have to wait long. Jennifer, the third part of our small group of friends from childhood, entered. She was obviously just getting off work as well, still in her suit with her wings tucked in.

I handed her a hot chocolate. “Catch any murderers today?”

“If only! I’m STILL filling out paperwork over the whole ‘partner going rogue’ incident.” She pouted a bit as she spoke, flicking the wand at her waist to summon a huge chocolate muffin. I ignored the blatant disregard for café rules regarding use of magic and eating outside food. It just wasn’t worth the fight. (Plus my boss was in the back buried in tax papers, and not likely to notice). In between serving customers we got the whole “bad flight” story out of Virginia.

“Wow,” Jennifer sipped at her hot chocolate, obviously thinking hard “We’ve had an increase in incidents with rogue ghosts lately. Did you report it to the police?”

Virginia shot her a look “Yes, Detective. I’m not an idiot. As soon as we landed I reported it to the SPF.”

“I tell you, things are getting weird lately.” I cleaned glasses while I spoke “Just last week you were complaining about the increase in Dark Fae attacks, before that it was werewolves going missing, and now there’s ghost attacks?”

“Yeah, the pack is still upset about losing so many members in such a short time.” Virginia moodily stirred her drink; “The alpha keeps bugging me about quitting my job and ‘seeing to the pack survival.’ “ She shuddered “Crawling naked over broken glass sounds more appealing.”

Jennifer patted her on the back “If they pressure you too much, let me know. I’ll make them regret it.”

“Thanks.” She raised her cup “To freedom and great friends.”

“To freedom!” We toasted with a laugh using our coffee cups.

A few more customers came in, some young girls whose horns and red eyes marked them out as demons. They ordered complex drinks and sighed loudly as they waited. I kept my eye rolls and sarcastic comments to myself, like the good barista I was.

“So Grace, you never told us how it went with Arcadeus meeting your parents!”

I groaned, not stopping in my work, handing the girls their drinks and finishing the transaction.

“I will need to be VERY drunk to tell you guys that whole debacle.” I sighed, counting out the change and dropping into the girl’s reddish tinged hand. “Let’s just say his father showed up, and watching the devil compete with my father the genie for half the night was not my idea of a great time. It started with plague rats and went downhill from there.”

“That sounds int…” Jennifer was interrupted by the demon girl I had just finished serving.

“YOU’RE the girl who snagged Arcadeus, son of the Devil?” She looked me up and down while she spoke, her tone suggesting she was not impressed.

“If by ‘snag’ you mean: he begged her for a date and his dad froze Hell over just to set them up, then yes.” Virginia spoke up, a low growl sounding in the back of her throat.

The girl snorted, “Can’t believe he’d sink so low.”

Jennifer started to stand, “Look here…”

I held up a hand, silencing her. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got this.” The day I couldn’t handle my own fights was the day I was dead and buried. I calmly turned to the girl and answered,

“Yes, person I don’t know who is prying into my personal life, I am dating Arcadeus. We are very happy, and you whining about it won’t change that.” I waved cheerfully at her, “Enjoy your coffee.”

The demon glared at me, raising a hand and chanting a few words.

I let her tire herself out, and grinned at her. “A curse of blindness? Really? I expected better.” I shook my head slowly, pulling out a small vial from underneath my shirt.

“What is tha…ARRGH!”  She ended on a shriek as I spritzed holy water on her face. She and her friend ran out, screaming curses as they left. I tucked the tiny spray bottle back into my clothing with a chuckle. The one benefit I get from my supernatural origins is a resistance to magical curses. A trait that has definitely come in handy since my new relationship started. Not that I was going to tell Arcadeus about these little incidents. It would just upset him.

Jennifer gave me a high five over the bar. “Not that I care what happens to those little twerps, but aren’t your worried your boss might be upset that you assaulted customers?”

From the room in the back we heard a gruff shout. “Not if they pay for their coffee first.”

With a laugh we settled into continue catching up through the rest of my shift.

After I got off work, I was walking back to my bike parked in the back, when I came face to face with a pale young man standing in the alley. He was slim, his pale dark hair hanging in his face. His eyes were hidden behind sunglasses.

This didn’t look good. I started to back away.

“Don’t worry, I’m a cop.” He held up a badge. Crap, it was Jennifer’s rogue partner, Alex. I backed away faster, turning around to run when everything went dark.

 Virginia

As I left the coffee shop, I let out a huge yawn. Man, taking a 24 hour shift right after that flight had been a terrible idea. I checked my cell phone, noting multiple missed calls from Jeffrey, the Alpha of my pack. I deleted the voice mails without listening to them, ignoring the instinct to cater to his every whim. I had made my position very clear last time I spoke with him. I loved my job, I didn’t love him, and neither of those statements added up to me becoming a stay at home wife/mate for him.

Wrapped up in my own problems, I almost missed the scent of distress in the air. In the corner of my eye I saw a young, thin man pick up an unconscious Grace, hefting her onto his shoulder.

“Wait, STOP!” I yelled out, but it was too late. With a triumphant grin in my direction, the young man activated some sort of device in his hand and disappeared. I ran to the spot where he had been just a moment before. There were spots of blood on the asphault. Grace’s blood. I felt my claws and teeth lengthen as anger took over. The urge to kill and tear was overwhelming.

“Virginia, what’s going on?” Jennifer had heard me yelling and was coming over to help, her wand drawn and ready for action.

“HE TOOK GRACE.” I could barely get the words out past my fangs.

Once Jennifer had gotten all the details from me, she cursed. “That must have been Alex, my old partner. I should have known he’d try some crap like this.” She waved her wand, a small golden crochet hook, snagging a motorcycle out of thin air.

“I’m coming with you!” I started towards the bike too, but was stopped by her hand in the air.

“No, sorry, but you’re not a cop, you’re exhausted and you’re not thinking straight. Frankly, you would only get in my way like this.”

With an apologetic smile, she took off, the engine roaring as she turned the corner and went out of sight.

“Screw that.” I was not letting my two friends be in danger without trying to help. Besides, what if one of them got hurt? Having a doctor there might make a difference. There was no way in Hell I was staying out of this.

Wait.

Speaking of Hell...

I wasn't adept at magic, but I knew the basics. Chanting under my breath and with a few passes of my hands I performed a basic communication spell.

"Virginia! I'm so happy to see you!" A puff of red smoke blew around her as Arcadeus stepped out. The smell of sulfur was strong in the air, causing me to sneeze.

"Oh crap, the sulfur, that's embarrassing!" He waved his hands futilely, trying to disperse it. "That's the problem with working in Hell, the smell tends to linger."  He blushed as he spoke, looking mortified.

"It's ok, don't worry about it." We had bigger issues, anyways.

"Not that I'm not glad to see you, Virginia, but why did you call? Is Grace around?" Even mentioning her name was enough to brighten his whole face, and he looked around as if trying to catch sight of her.

I sighed; this wasn't going to be pretty.

I have had plenty of practice giving bad news over the years. It came along with the whole doctor thing. I usually had a pretty good idea how people would respond. Arcadeus seemed pretty quiet and sensitive, I was pretty sure this might overwhelm him. As I explained the situation I kept a close eye out for sign of distress, ready to provide support as needed.

I shouldn't have worried.

His face didn't change at all; you would have thought I had told him about the weather, except for the eyes. His eyes blazed a fiery red, and the air around him seemed to boil. I felt the pressure of his power pushing against me, and fought the urge to shrink back. He caught my gaze and held it.

"Where?" He was still soft spoken, but the single word sent chills down my spine.

"Jennifer was tracking them on her bike, she went that way." I pointed as I spoke.

His eyes closed and he whispered a quiet incantation to himself, a language I quickly recognized as the dialect of Hell. A moment later he opened them, his face still calm, but terrifying.

"A lesser demon has spotted them on the south side of town. I can teleport us there if you want to come along?" He held out his hand. The rage in his gaze had lessened somewhat. I could see his concern for Grace shining through. I took his hand without hesitation.

"Let's go."

The world around us shimmered and faded, and soon became what appeared to be a large abandoned warehouse. Well, not quite so abandoned.

We were surrounded by a group of dark fae, creatures of every shape and size. Everywhere I turned there were fangs, claws, and the distinct black gaze that marked their kind.

I let my claws grow out, nervously shifting closer to Arcadeus. To my shock he chuckled grimly.

"When I tell you, break through and run."

His voice was pitched low enough to carry to my ears only. He drew himself up to his full height, pushing his white hair back to emphasize his horns.

" I am Arcadeus, son of Satan." I could barely recognize his voice through the freezing chill that coated it.

"You have made the grave error of kidnapping the woman I love."

I let out a quiet "Aww" but he shushed me and continued.

" I will give you one chance to escape painful demise: tell me where she is, and I will let you live." His quiet ultimatum was met with derisive laughter.

"She screams quite beautifully, I think we'll keep her."

The silence was heavy.

"Wrong answer." He tapped my shoulder in a silent sign to run. As I moved forward, the enemies in front of me disintegrated into flames. I passed through the open door, moving deeper into the building. Behind me I heard screams of agony and a roar of hellfire, but I ignored it and kept moving.

I had friends to find.

 Jennifer

I knew where to go. I had been researching into the dark fae since my partner tried to kill me. There had been 3 or 4 possible places I had narrowed it down to during my last shift, and only one was in this part of town. I rode towards an abandoned warehouse, my summoned motorcycle roaring beneath me. My mind raced as I traveled. Why had they taken Grace? It had to be a trap.

But what could they possibly gain by luring me out?

I peered in through the ground floor windows. Hundreds of dark fae stood guard.

Well, crap. I wasn't getting in or out that way. I looked up, spotting a window several stories above me. With a quick flick of my wand I summoned a grappling hook. When that didn't work (I didn't actually know how to use a grappling hook), I came to my senses, cast a quick glamour and flew up to the window through the cracked, dirty glass I could see Grace bound to a chair.  Fortunately it was unlocked. I entered the room quietly, keeping my invisibility glamour up.

Grace looked up at my approach, her natural resistance to magic allowed her to see past my spell.

"You idiot, what are you doing?! This couldn't be any more obvious of a trap if they had taped a big sign to the door saying 'Trap! Idiots welcome!'" She glared at me, a bruise marring the right side of her face.

"I'm saving your butt, you ungrateful little turd! Now shut up and let's get you free."

I looked at her bonds. Dark bands of magic wrapped around her, holding her to the chair and her wrists together behind her.

"Actually..." whatever Grace had been about to say was interrupted by a dark voice that sent chills down my spine. A voice that was all too familiar.

“Jennifer, darling, I’m so glad you could make it to our little party.”

I looked up into black, soulless eyes framed in a sweet face with dark hair. A face I had stared up into from my crib. A woman who, up until the time she tried to kill me, had been my entire world.

“Mother.” I spat the word out like a curse. She inclined her head slightly as if acknowledging the title. “What do you want?”

“Now, now, darling, no need to be so crass. I just need a teensy tiny little thing from you, and I will let you and your human friend here go.”

I took a step closer, brandishing my wand. “That doesn’t sound like much fun. How about I arrest you instead?” I edged closer. “That sounds much better.”

“Don’t take another step.” Another familiar voice, another remembered betrayal. My former partner, Alex, now a vampire, held a knife to Grace’s throat. She kept her face calm and her head still, but she was slowly mouthing at me “don’t listen to them.” He noticed the slight movement and pressed the blade in, breaking the skin slightly.

“Drop your wand.” I hesitated, but only for a moment. I couldn’t risk Grace’s life. I dropped my wand.

“Good girl.” My mother laughed bitterly and kicked the wand away. She put a hand to my throat, and I felt a prick of a needle against my neck. I struggled but she was stronger and held me still. “Don’t move, sweetie. I just need a bit of blood from your jugular, but if I don’t aim right even this little needle could cause some serious damage.”

I held still, hearing but not registering a commotion at the other side of the room. All my focus was on my mother. “Why?”

She smiled at me, withdrawing the needle now attached to a vial full of blood. “You were a bit unexpected dear. You were born between two worlds, to both light and dark fae, not that your father knew that at the time.” She smiled, “You may have noticed a slight increase in our activities lately. I have found the key to expanding our kingdom far beyond the ancient restrictions. All I need is to get rid of some pesky weaknesses natural to our kind and the world will be ours on a platter.” She held up the container with my blood. “This holds the key to making the dark fae indestructible. So thank you, dear.” With a sad sigh she pulled out a large knife. “Now that I have what I need, I’m afraid your friend will have to die. She’s only a liability.” She waved a hand in my direction, freezing me in place. “Not you though, if that’s any comfort. I may still need more blood from you.” She turned to face the chair where Grace was tied, only to be met with a fist to the face.

“That’s for kidnapping me and tying me up.” Grace punched her again, the silver knuckles she wore glinting on her fist as it made contact with my mother’s face. “And THAT’s for sticking Jennifer with a needle!” The dark fairy went down and Grace rushed to my side.

I was confused, “How did you…”

“I’m immune to magic, remember? The bonds couldn’t hold me. All I had to due was knock out creepy dude over there…” She jerked a thumb in the direction of my former partner, now unconscious on the ground. “So I could give your messed up mom a lesson in manners.” Cracking her knuckles, she grinned. “Impressed?”

I was, but wouldn’t tell her that. “I’ll throw you a parade later.” I picked up the vial of blood from my mother’s hand and smashed it on the ground. I then turned to handcuff Alex, that vampiric little rat.

“We better get you back before Virginia dies of worry. We’ll have to figure out a way to sneak out, the entrance is blocked by at least a hundred dark fae.”  

“Don’t worry, I’m here to save the day!” As if on cue, Virginia strolled in the door, claws out and ready to fight. She must have been in a few fights already; there were bloodstains on her scrubs and around her hands. She saw that we were both standing free and dropped her head dejectedly. “Dangit! I’m too late aren’t I?”

Grace went over and patted her back. “It’s ok, you can help us figure out how to escape, since the front door is blocked.”

“It’s not blocked.” Arcadeus walked in, looking tired but unharmed. “Are you okay?” He rushed to Grace’s side, gently touching the bruised side of her face.

“I’m fine, what are you doing here?” Grace hugged him tightly, and pulled him in for a gentle kiss, wincing a bit at the pressure on her lip.

“Trying to be helpful. Obviously not doing such a great job.” He grimaced and looked around. “Is the vampire the one who hit you?” His eyes glowed red and he started forward, only to be stopped by a soft hand to his chest.

“It wasn’t him, it was someone else, and don’t worry, I’ve already punched them back.”

“Where are they?”

I pointed behind me, “She’s right over… oh crap.” There was only empty space where my mother had been. She had escaped. I got a firmer grasp on my former partner. I was going to bring this one in if it killed me. “We need to get out of here.” I turned back to Arcadeus. “What did you mean the front door isn’t blocked? There was a bunch of guys there!”

I swear he blushed. “I took care of it.”

Virginia chimed in “Yeah, he was seriously awesome back there. Even I was scared!”

Grace just smiled and gave Arcadeus another hug.

We went out through the now empty front room, and headed for the SPF station. Once I talked my boss off the ledge, assuring him I wasn’t turning into a vigilante, and public property damage had been minimal we booked Alex, got debriefed and finally got our bumps, scratches and in my case, puncture marks patched up by Virginia. By the time we walked out of the station, it was late afternoon.

Grace stretched and yawned. “I better get some sleep. I have to be at work soon.”  

Virginia nodded, stifling a yawn herself. “Ditto.” She looked around. “Let’s get together again later this week. You know, catch up, minus the kidnapping and dark fae conspiracies.” She patted Arcadeus on the back, and gave him a wink, “You’re invited too of course.” He turned red and stammered a thanks, causing us all to laugh as we headed out in different directions.  

I was left alone to my thoughts.

I had not seen my mother since she tried to kill me years before. To be confronted with her so suddenly after all these years was...upsetting, to put it mildly. I thought of her words, that I was born of both worlds, light and dark, and shuddered.

My mother was still out there.

I would find her. I would end this.

[gleefail]

Glee Memories: 1x9 Wheels

A long, long time ago, as Glee was approaching graduation in Season 3, I found myself nostalgic with some rare free time on my hands. So I decided to rewatch the series from the beginning and jot down some memories, discrepancies that have arisen since, fave quotes, tally solos - all that good stuff, strictly for shits and giggles.

8 years later (eek!) and once more I find myself with an unexpected abundance of free time. With so many revisiting or being newly introduced to the show between binge watching during Quarantine and all the tragedy that has surrounded the show since it went off the air, I figured I’d finish what I started. And by finish, I mean go through the end of S3. Cause I truly cannot acknowledge what happened after that. Except for 5B.

Kicking this off by reposting the first 15 episodes I already went through. Enjoy!

1x9 Wheels I haven’t addressed yet that this voice-over “Here’s what you missed on Glee” guy is different…will be interesting to see when they changed it.

um…when did Kurt tell everyone that he was gay? Didn’t he only come out to Mercedes and his dad so far? I definitely missed that on Glee

Holy crap. I forgot about this Cheerios jump rope number.

This is when I started not liking S1 Quinn. When she started being just plain mean to Finn even as she lied to him about the baby being his. Uncalled for. Although her calling out that he’s a peabrain is hella-necessary.

Figgins can’t pay for a bus for Artie to get to sectionals. Understandable? Is that like, legal?

Makes total sense that Sue has boosters that provide funds for traveling etc. Doesn’t make sense that the Glee club never started music boosters….not to me anyways.

Will’s right. In high school, some of the best trips were rides to other schools for volleyball games and showchoir competitions together. Although that almost always involved people mooning out the back window. And getting to third base under letterman jackets. Just my school? Anyone else?

Aw…Tina is looking at Artie from afar…not necessarily romantically…concerned? Whatever the reason, it’s cute.

Aw, Kurt’s so excited about Defying Gravity

let the record show, Mr. Schue just handed a solo to Rachel for a competition for the first time ever. But not the last. Don’t get me started.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find something for you to…dip in chocolate” Two things: 1. Yes you will. And his name is Sam Evans. (’wanky’). 2. No, you won’t Mr. Schue. No. You. Won’t. #oops

“I mean, bake sales are kind of bourgee” “So hip people stopped eating delicious, sugary treats?” “It’s not that, it’s that most of us don’t know how to bake. I find recipes confusing.” I love every moment of this exchange. And

Britany’s officially not all there now. :) Yaaaay!

Aw, poor Artie and the peer pressure of having to say he doesn’t mind when he’s clearly hurt by people he thinks are his friends. Poor guy.

It really does impress me how Kevin McHale manages to completely lose use of his legs. Even when he’s boppin in his wheelchair. I don’t think I could do it.

Jenna Ushkowitz is flat out adorable laughing at her lunch table in slow motion.

Aw Tina. These original members really do all have a lil special place in my heart. Before RIB screwed most of them over.

Ruh roh, I know that look. Mr. Schue is getting an idea watching Artie jamming around in his wheelchair…

Why is Kurt wearing a gangsta bandana on his head?

“But I’m happy to have you try out something else, Kurt. And I’ll make sure it’s got a killer high note” No. No, you won’t Schue. Ugh. Three seasons of empty promises and he won Teacher of the Year? Riiiight.

“Well, you’re irritating most of the time but…don’t take that personally”

“Preach!” Yes!!! There’s the Artie I know and love! It makes me giggle more seeing moments like this knowing he asks Amber to show him how to do it, lol.

hahahahaha – Finn just got hit in the back of the head with someone’s baseball bat! Rachel just got her lunch spilled all over her! Oh, happiness.

“it’s what I have left of my pool cleaning money. After I bought dip and numchucks” 

Quinn is so pretty in regular clothes with her hair down in season one. I would buy that THIS is the girl everyone wants to be. She’s totes that popular, bitchy girl who has everything.

“It would be pretty awesome if it came out with a Mohawk”

Aw, this food fight is still so cute. I feel like we haven’t seen Quinn laugh like that since until she was going up that ramp with Artie cheering her on. So cute.

“It’s not about a guy, is it? Cause…I’m not ready to have that conversation.” “At least you don’t have to worry about me getting someone pregnant” snicker snicker. True dat.

“You sing like a girl – in a good way”

So…yeah, they were doing Defying Gravity for Sectionals…what happened to that?

FIRST APPEARANCE OF LAUREN ZIZES!!!

Ugh. So stupid Rachel is complaining about having to audition for a solo. It’s showchoir. You should have to audition for EVERY solo and anyone who wants to can. …but it’s Glee

“We all know I’m more popular than Rachel – and I dress better than her…”

“Your right hand, Britany” *Santana whispers to her “it’s this one”* Yup. Not all there. There’s mah girl!

I love that instead of saying “I promise to vote for whoever sings the song better”, Mercedes blatantly says to Kurt “I promise to vote FOR YOU” with a big smile. I love Kurtcedes. Have I said that yet?

“Maybe one of these days you’ll find a way to create teaching moments without ruining my life.” Oh he will Rachel. He’ll just ruin everyone else’s.

“Those are what I call ‘lazy makers’”

Figgins is making Sue hold auditions to replace Quinn on the Cheerios. How do they not try out in the first place?

“and as soon as a cheerleader rolls herself out onto the field in a wheelchair she becomes decidedly less effective at cheering people up. It’s just a fact.”

“Stop attacking me. I’m sick of it” I like this Finn. Where did he come from? And where did he go?

I never ever ever realized that that was Kurt auditioning for the Cheerios with a baton. OMG!

haha, also never realized that the “freak” did the splits and clearly landed on his junk but tried to play it like he was fine. HAAAAA!

“Becky, I’m gonna stop you right there. You’re in.” YAY!

“I’m just saying, she has a point; you are kind of an idiot.” Truth.com, Puck.

“It’s just like you, with your stutter” Tina’s reaction said it all. “But I wanna be very clear: I still have the use of my penis.” HAAAAAAA!!! And Artie’s “why did I say that?!” look afterwards. Golden.

Kurt warming up to a high F while Burt gets the “your son’s a fag” phone call. So damn sad.

“Sometimes I just…I wish your mom was still around, y’know?” Aw, Burt. So happy you’ll find Carol.

“I don’t wanna win out of charity. I wanna win the solo because it’s right for the club. I really think that the judges at Sectionals will find a female version of Defying Gravity much more accessible.” Lies and manipulation and selfishness of Rachel Berry. And it begins.

“People just don’t like me.” “Yeah, you might wanna work on that” Yup. You might, Rachel. Too bad ya never really did unless it was to benefit you. hahaha, Puck put a lil pot in the cupcakes. I totally forgot about that. omg. There’s a loooot of flannel in that lunch room. What is that about?

Haha. Puck buying pot from Sandy. “The doctor said the shark fractured my spinal cord.” “This is why I don’t go to the aquarium.”

Sue’s mean don’t discriminate because of handicap, gender, religion, or sexual preference.

“You think this is hard? Try auditioning for Baywatch and being told they’re going in a different direction. THAT was hard.” Truth.

“Oh, I bully everyone, William. That’s the way I roll”

First official Diva-off!! I remember I soooo wanted Kurt to win, but it was all over his face that something was up ever since Burt told him about that phone call.

First sacrifice for Rachel Berry. Go.

Even back then when I liked Rachel Berry, I didn’t like her singing this song. I think my dislike of her started right around here. Like “who does she think she is, trying to sing this song better than Idina, when she knows damn well, coming from Broadway, who Idina is!?” that was me, lol. My point is I still don’t like her on this song. It has a special place in my heart and I need more of a powerhouse on it, and someone whose soul I can hear when they sing it, not just trying to sing pretty.

“’It’ is a ‘she’.” That’s a cute moment. :)

Ok. Ohhhhh boy. Finn got a job by pretending to be handicapped and stuck in a wheelchair. But wasn’t it Finn that 2 seasons later berates Quinn for not announcing that she’s improved to now be able to stand/walk to get votes for Prom Queen? I just…I refrain from comment. It’ll get ugly.

Aw, Artie is donating the money to get a ramp put in the auditorium instead of using it to get a bus to go to Sectionals with everyone. Way to take one for the team, Artie. He’s a good guy.

Sue donated the $600 to rent the bus for Sectionals. Aw. I knew something was up at that point. Lies. I knew something was up when she told Will “You don’t know the FIRST thing about me.”

Aw, Jean. This relationship was so sweet.

AWWWWW – Artie’s face after Tina kisses him!!!

Aw. Artie’s face after Tina admits that she’s faking her stutter. :(

“I’m sorry now you get to be normal and I’m gonna be stuck in this chair for the rest of my life. And that’s not something I can fake.” Aw, man. So sad.

“I’m just saying that I love you more than I love being a star.” Oh Kurt. You little angel.

Ok. There are no words for how I felt when I found out Glee was doing Proud Mary. Here’s the thing: Me and my theatre friends always go to karaoke and take turns singing this song. And then the rest of us kinda flash mob it and rush the stage once the tempo picks up in synchronized back-up dancing. And it’s the highlight of our night and the best tradition when we can get everyone together to do it. Once people came up and asked if we were some group of performers that the bar hired to come do it. It’s soooo much fun. It has such a special place in my heart. I do it now for warm-ups with my high school kids when we need to unwind. And I always use this Glee version. Cause I loves Amber Riley and Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz on it. Things like this are what make me sad that Glee-ers are graduating more than missing the show itself or the writing; the memories made along the way. And the things like this that just make me smile.

Lol, one of my friends loved the duplicity of them singing this. Cause it was ‘rollin’ for Artie and ‘Mary’ for Kurt. He was gay, so I guess he was allowed to say things like that cause he owned it, lol.

This number is so effing awesome. And the costumes and hair are super cute.

I love the behind the scenes of this where Cory talks about when Amber fell out of her wheelchair and he just heard a crash followed  by incessant laughing. SOLOS: Artie (2), Rachel (1), Kurt (1), Mercedes (1), Tina (1)

[fesahaawit]

Are You Financially Average?

Mornin’ mornin’!

So last week we went over 15 great financial goals to hit if you wanted to be ABOVE average in this wacko world of ours, but today I thought it would be fun to see just how close we are to being AVERAGE average compared to others ;)

Because why not, right? What else are we going to do today?

Stats are below in bold, followed by my own thoughts & answers… I’ll let you decide which areas you actually want to be average on, and which you don’t ;)

10 Financial Statistics of The Average American

(The data is mostly from 2015 and chock-full of other variables that we should probably pay attention to, but take them for what they’re worth and just play along with this blogger here ;) Big shout to The Motley Fool where I borrowed these stats from.)

#1. The average American gross household income is $71,258

Pretty decent… Our household income this year will be around $110,000 between my wife’s new job and my online projects, but obviously if there’s only one of you in your household it’s going to skew your results :)  Verdict for us: above average

#2. The average American household with debt owes $132,529

Dayuuummm… Although it *does* include mortgages and student loans, cars, etc, so it’s not ALL credit card debt. We’ve opted to go back to renting so we don’t have any mortgages, but we do have a car note with $12,142.79 left which makes our verdict here below average.

#3. The average American gave $5,491 to charity in 2015

Pretty good!!! Probably because the higher earners skew it, but still – no shame in trying to keep up! And outside all the gobs of time I spend helping people with their $$$, we fail here with only giving about $1,000 in cash and donations last year… Though we did give out over $14,000 so far with our Community Fund I helped launch, and my $20/mo charity trick is now auto. pumping out $100/mo to 5 of my favorite organizations, so we are getting better! Verdict: below average (but not for long!)

#4. The average American has a FICO credit score of 700

Much better than I’d expect? I’m not exactly sure what my *FICO* score is, but I do know from last week’s checking that we’re at 829 with Experian and 835 w/ TransUnion and 833 w/ Equifax. So I would assume we’d be in the 800’s as well with FICO. And man are there a lot of different scores out there? You can learn more about most of them here, but again as long as you’re at least monitoring one of them consistently you’ll be just fine. J$ verdict: above average

#5. The average American’s 401(k) balance is $96,288

I no longer have a 401(k) since becoming self-employed, but I do have about $504,000 in my SEP IRA which is an equivalent (minus those glorious free matches!!!) so it’s safe to say we’re way above average here too. You could also probably include IRAs and any other types of retirement accounts here which of course paints a much bigger picture, especially if you don’t even have access to a 401(k) plan.

Here’s a cool graph Motley Fool included that breaks down the average totals by *age* – which is a much fairer comparison. It comes from Vanguard’s 2016 How America Saves report (PDF):

(For more thoughts around this, check out my postings on Twitter and Facebook where there were some pretty lively conversations going in response to this graph!)

#6. The average personal savings rate in the U.S. is 5.5%

Ugh… Although apparently this is up from 1.9% in 2005, so yay? I’m never quite sure exactly how one goes about calculating their savings rate (do you use pre-tax money? After-tax? Does investing count? What about debt payments?) but here’s what I get depending on what I’m including – all based on pre-tax income:

Actual “savings” rate: 0% (all our extra money goes to maxing out retirement accounts and debt)

Investing rate: 26% (SEP IRA, ROTH IRA)

Investing + debt pay off rate: 34% (SEP IRA, ROTH IRA, Car loan)

Verdict: above average

#7. Only 18% of Americans actively contribute to an IRA

Double ugh… I’m not sure what’s considered “active” here (I usually contribute only once a year to max it out vs monthly deposits) but either way not good, America. Not good! J$ verdict: above average

#8. The average American’s tax refund in 2016 was $2,860.

I know people either LOVE getting refunds or think it’s asinine that you “give the government a loan,” but as far as I’m concerned a nice surprise is always better than an ugly one. And I find that when people get a *chunk* of money vs smaller more frequent ones, they tend to apply it more towards bigger goals anyways since it seems to make a much larger difference. So to me it’s all in HOW YOU USE THE MONEY vs when you get it.

As for our typical returns, we usually break even since we pay taxes quarterly, however last year we got an unexpected return of $5,000 when we overpaid on part of some money that came in at the end of the year. Which of course went right back into investments! And again, a much better surprise getting $5,000 back than the opposite ;)

Verdict: above average (not sure how to color code this, haha…)

#9. The average American pays an effective federal income tax rate of 13.5%

Wow! Wouldn’t have ever guessed that! Not that I pay attention too much to this stuff (borrrrringgggg). And similar to the whole savings rate thing I wasn’t quite sure how to calculate this puppy either, however a quick Google search shot me a fast answer and was able to figure it out nicely.

Per Investopedia:

An individual’s effective tax rate is calculated by dividing total tax expense from line 63 of his 1040 Form by his taxable income from line 43 of that form.

Easy enough, right? For 2016 that came out to 17% for us (much lower than usual probably due to us taking a loss when we sold our house earlier in the year, as well as my wife maybe going back to work?), but for 2015 it was quite higher at a whopping 43%! Can that be right?? This is exactly why I use an accountant as I don’t trust myself to calculate crap haha…

Verdict: above average (I’m gonna say this is both good and bad: bad cuz we’re obviously paying more than the average, but good in that it typically means we’re also *earning more,* as well as giving more back to support our state/country too)

#10. The average American’s Social Security retirement benefit is $1,363/mo

Reason #38 to make sure you’re saving and investing on your own!! Can’t rely on anyone to support you in retirement :( I cant find my login/password to the site at the moment, but here’s what our future payments were estimated at two years ago. I’d imagine it’s only gone up?

(I like how “early retirement” is 62 btw… surely they haven’t come across FIRE blogs! ;))

You can easily access all your own social security stuff these days here: http://ift.tt/1Dgs85A (provided you remember your password!). It’s also helpful when trying to run your Lifetime Wealth Ratio too that I conjured up :) Divide your current net worth by your *total earnings* over your lifetime and see what % of it you still have left! Just make sure to have a box of tissues around as most times it’s pretty depressing, haha… Verdict: above average

#11. Bonus: The average American will spend $165.14 on Thanksgiving expenses this year (via LendEdu)

If only that read Christmas! :) We’ll probably only be spending around $30 or $40 for gas and some side dishes to the dinners we’ll be attending this year (thanks mom and dad!), but I know some are flying all over the place which I’d imagine gets pricey pretty fast. Good thing we love our friends and families! Verdict: below average

(my favorite all-time gift, given to me by Baby Penny!)

BTW, right before I went to publish this I got two more T-Day stats emailed to me, by Ebates:

22% of Americans plan to begin their Black Friday shopping online after Thanksgiving dinner

11% of Americans admit to shopping on their mobile phones during Thanksgiving dinner

Wow…

So there you have it! The average financial stats of your fellow man and woman :)

Where do you land? More average than below average? More below than above?

It looks like I’m mostly above average in the right places and below average in the others, but areas of improvement can be found in both the charity and the effective tax rate areas… I’m still amazed by how all those early retirees pay 0% in taxes btw, even though they’re all millionaires!! Talk about being crafty!

See this post here by Go Curry Cracker to see what I mean: Never Pay Taxes Again (hint: you’ll need to live on far less than you’re probably doing right now to pull this off)

Thanks for playing along! No one else in real life likes talking about this stuff with me ;)

**** PS: Here’s the link again to the Motley Fool article if you want to learn more: 10 Incredible Financial Statistics That Sum Up the Average American

Are You Financially Average? posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

[heliosfinance]

Are You Financially Average?

Mornin’ mornin’!

So last week we went over 15 great financial goals to hit if you wanted to be ABOVE average in this wacko world of ours, but today I thought it would be fun to see just how close we are to being AVERAGE average compared to others ;)

Because why not, right? What else are we going to do today?

Stats are below in bold, followed by my own thoughts & answers… I’ll let you decide which areas you actually want to be average on, and which you don’t ;)

10 Financial Statistics of The Average American

(The data is mostly from 2015 and chalk full of other variables that we should probably pay attention to, but take them for what they’re worth and just play along with this blogger here ;) Big shout to The Motley Fool where I borrowed these stats from.)

#1. The average American gross household income is $71,258

Pretty decent… Our household income this year will be around $110,000 between my wife’s new job and my online projects, but obviously if there’s only one of you in your household it’s going to skew your results :)  Verdict for us: above average

#2. The average American household with debt owes $132,529

Dayuuummm… Although it *does* include mortgages and student loans, cars, etc, so it’s not ALL credit card debt. We’ve opted to go back to renting so we don’t have any mortgages, but we do have a car note with $12,142.79 left which makes our verdict here below average.

#3. The average American gave $5,491 to charity in 2015

Pretty good!!! Probably because the higher earners skew it, but still – no shame in trying to keep up! And outside all the gobs of time I spend helping people with their $$$, we fail here with only giving about $1,000 in cash and donations last year… Though we did give out over $14,000 so far with our Community Fund I helped launch, and my $20/mo charity trick is now auto. pumping out $100/mo to 5 of my favorite organizations, so we are getting better! Verdict: below average (but not for long!)

#4. The average American has a FICO credit score of 700

Much better than I’d expect? I’m not exactly sure what my *FICO* score is, but I do know from last week’s checking that we’re at 829 with Experian and 835 w/ TransUnion and 833 w/ Equifax. So I would assume we’d be in the 800’s as well with FICO. And man are there a lot of different scores out there? You can learn more about most of them here, but again as long as you’re at least monitoring one of them consistently you’ll be just fine. J$ verdict: above average

#5. The average American’s 401(k) balance is $96,288

I no longer have a 401(k) since becoming self-employed, but I do have about $504,000 in my SEP IRA which is an equivalent (minus those glorious free matches!!!) so it’s safe to say we’re way above average here too. You could also probably include IRAs and any other types of retirement accounts here which of course paints a much bigger picture, especially if you don’t even have access to a 401(k) plan.

Here’s a cool graph Motley Fool included that breaks down the average totals by *age* – which is a much fairer comparison. It comes from Vanguard’s 2016 How America Saves report (PDF):

(For more thoughts around this, check out my postings on Twitter and Facebook where there were some pretty lively conversations going in response to this graph!)

#6. The average personal savings rate in the U.S. is 5.5%

Ugh… Although apparently this is up from 1.9% in 2005, so yay? I’m never quite sure exactly how one goes about calculating their savings rate (do you use pre-tax money? After-tax? Does investing count? What about debt payments?) but here’s what I get depending on what I’m including – all based on pre-tax income:

Actual “savings” rate: 0% (all our extra money goes to maxing out retirement accounts and debt)

Investing rate: 26% (SEP IRA, ROTH IRA)

Investing + debt pay off rate: 34% (SEP IRA, ROTH IRA, Car loan)

Verdict: above average

#7. Only 18% of Americans actively contribute to an IRA

Double ugh… I’m not sure what’s considered “active” here (I usually contribute only once a year to max it out vs monthly deposits) but either way not good, America. Not good! J$ verdict: above average

#8. The average American’s tax refund in 2016 was $2,860.

I know people either LOVE getting refunds or think it’s asinine that you “give the government a loan,” but as far as I’m concerned a nice surprise is always better than an ugly one. And I find that when people get a *chunk* of money vs smaller more frequent ones, they tend to apply it more towards bigger goals anyways since it seems to make a much larger difference. So to me it’s all in HOW YOU USE THE MONEY vs when you get it.

As for our typical returns, we usually break even since we pay taxes quarterly, however last year we got an unexpected return of $5,000 when we overpaid on part of some money that came in at the end of the year. Which of course went right back into investments! And again, a much better surprise getting $5,000 back than the opposite ;)

Verdict: above average (not sure how to color code this, haha…)

#9. The average American pays an effective federal income tax rate of 13.5%

Wow! Wouldn’t have ever guessed that! Not that I pay attention too much to this stuff (borrrrringgggg). And similar to the whole savings rate thing I wasn’t quite sure how to calculate this puppy either, however a quick Google search shot me a fast answer and was able to figure it out nicely.

Per Investopedia:

An individual’s effective tax rate is calculated by dividing total tax expense from line 63 of his 1040 Form by his taxable income from line 43 of that form.

Easy enough, right? For 2016 that came out to 17% for us (much lower than usual probably due to us taking a loss when we sold our house earlier in the year, as well as my wife maybe going back to work?), but for 2015 it was quite higher at a whopping 43%! Can that be right?? This is exactly why I use an accountant as I don’t trust myself to calculate crap haha…

Verdict: above average (I’m gonna say this is both good and bad: bad cuz we’re obviously paying more than the average, but good in that it typically means we’re also *earning more,* as well as giving more back to support our state/country too)

#10. The average American’s Social Security retirement benefit is $1,363/mo

Reason #38 to make sure you’re saving and investing on your own!! Can’t rely on anyone to support you in retirement :( I cant find my login/password to the site at the moment, but here’s what our future payments were estimated at two years ago. I’d imagine it’s only gone up?

(I like how “early retirement” is 62 btw… surely they haven’t come across FIRE blogs! ;))

You can easily access all your own social security stuff these days here: http://ift.tt/1Dgs85A (provided you remember your password!). It’s also helpful when trying to run your Lifetime Wealth Ratio too that I conjured up :) Divide your current net worth by your *total earnings* over your lifetime and see what % of it you still have left! Just make sure to have a box of tissues around as most time it’s pretty depressing, haha… Verdict: above average

#11. Bonus: The average American will spend $165.14 on Thanksgiving expenses this year (via LendEdu)

If only that read Christmas! :) We’ll probably only be spending around $30 or $40 for gas and some side dishes to the dinners we’ll be attending this year (thanks mom and dad!), but I know some are flying all over the place which I’d imagine gets pricey pretty fast. Good thing we love our friends and families! Verdict: below average

(my favorite all-time gift, given to me by Baby Penny!)

BTW, right before I went to publish this I got two more T-Day stats emailed to me, by Ebates:

22% off Americans plan to begin their Black Friday shopping online after Thanksgiving dinner

11% of Americans admit to shopping on their mobile phones during Thanksgiving dinner

Wow…

So there you have it! The average financial stats of your fellow man and woman :)

Where do you land? More average than below average? More below than above?

It looks like I’m mostly above average in the right places and below average in the others, but areas of improvement can be found in both the charity and the effective tax rate areas… I’m still amazed by how all those early retirees pay 0% in taxes btw, even though they’re all millionaires!! Talk about being crafty!

See this post here by Go Curry Cracker to see what I mean: Never Pay Taxes Again (hint: you’ll need to live on far less than you’re probably doing right now to pull this off)

Thanks for playing along! No one else in real life likes talking about this stuff with me ;)

**** PS: Here’s the link again to the Motley Fool article if you want to learn more: 10 Incredible Financial Statistics That Sum Up the Average American

Are You Financially Average? published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

[fesahaawit]

Are You Financially Average?

Mornin’ mornin’!

So last week we went over 15 great financial goals to hit if you wanted to be ABOVE average in this wacko world of ours, but today I thought it would be fun to see just how close we are to being AVERAGE average compared to others ;)

Because why not, right? What else are we going to do today?

Stats are below in bold, followed by my own thoughts & answers… I’ll let you decide which areas you actually want to be average on, and which you don’t ;)

10 Financial Statistics of The Average American

(The data is mostly from 2015 and chock-full of other variables that we should probably pay attention to, but take them for what they’re worth and just play along with this blogger here ;) Big shout to The Motley Fool where I borrowed these stats from.)

#1. The average American gross household income is $71,258

Pretty decent… Our household income this year will be around $110,000 between my wife’s new job and my online projects, but obviously if there’s only one of you in your household it’s going to skew your results :)  Verdict for us: above average

#2. The average American household with debt owes $132,529

Dayuuummm… Although it *does* include mortgages and student loans, cars, etc, so it’s not ALL credit card debt. We’ve opted to go back to renting so we don’t have any mortgages, but we do have a car note with $12,142.79 left which makes our verdict here below average.

#3. The average American gave $5,491 to charity in 2015

Pretty good!!! Probably because the higher earners skew it, but still – no shame in trying to keep up! And outside all the gobs of time I spend helping people with their $$$, we fail here with only giving about $1,000 in cash and donations last year… Though we did give out over $14,000 so far with our Community Fund I helped launch, and my $20/mo charity trick is now auto. pumping out $100/mo to 5 of my favorite organizations, so we are getting better! Verdict: below average (but not for long!)

#4. The average American has a FICO credit score of 700

Much better than I’d expect? I’m not exactly sure what my *FICO* score is, but I do know from last week’s checking that we’re at 829 with Experian and 835 w/ TransUnion and 833 w/ Equifax. So I would assume we’d be in the 800’s as well with FICO. And man are there a lot of different scores out there? You can learn more about most of them here, but again as long as you’re at least monitoring one of them consistently you’ll be just fine. J$ verdict: above average

#5. The average American’s 401(k) balance is $96,288

I no longer have a 401(k) since becoming self-employed, but I do have about $504,000 in my SEP IRA which is an equivalent (minus those glorious free matches!!!) so it’s safe to say we’re way above average here too. You could also probably include IRAs and any other types of retirement accounts here which of course paints a much bigger picture, especially if you don’t even have access to a 401(k) plan.

Here’s a cool graph Motley Fool included that breaks down the average totals by *age* – which is a much fairer comparison. It comes from Vanguard’s 2016 How America Saves report (PDF):

(For more thoughts around this, check out my postings on Twitter and Facebook where there were some pretty lively conversations going in response to this graph!)

#6. The average personal savings rate in the U.S. is 5.5%

Ugh… Although apparently this is up from 1.9% in 2005, so yay? I’m never quite sure exactly how one goes about calculating their savings rate (do you use pre-tax money? After-tax? Does investing count? What about debt payments?) but here’s what I get depending on what I’m including – all based on pre-tax income:

Actual “savings” rate: 0% (all our extra money goes to maxing out retirement accounts and debt)

Investing rate: 26% (SEP IRA, ROTH IRA)

Investing + debt pay off rate: 34% (SEP IRA, ROTH IRA, Car loan)

Verdict: above average

#7. Only 18% of Americans actively contribute to an IRA

Double ugh… I’m not sure what’s considered “active” here (I usually contribute only once a year to max it out vs monthly deposits) but either way not good, America. Not good! J$ verdict: above average

#8. The average American’s tax refund in 2016 was $2,860.

I know people either LOVE getting refunds or think it’s asinine that you “give the government a loan,” but as far as I’m concerned a nice surprise is always better than an ugly one. And I find that when people get a *chunk* of money vs smaller more frequent ones, they tend to apply it more towards bigger goals anyways since it seems to make a much larger difference. So to me it’s all in HOW YOU USE THE MONEY vs when you get it.

As for our typical returns, we usually break even since we pay taxes quarterly, however last year we got an unexpected return of $5,000 when we overpaid on part of some money that came in at the end of the year. Which of course went right back into investments! And again, a much better surprise getting $5,000 back than the opposite ;)

Verdict: above average (not sure how to color code this, haha…)

#9. The average American pays an effective federal income tax rate of 13.5%

Wow! Wouldn’t have ever guessed that! Not that I pay attention too much to this stuff (borrrrringgggg). And similar to the whole savings rate thing I wasn’t quite sure how to calculate this puppy either, however a quick Google search shot me a fast answer and was able to figure it out nicely.

Per Investopedia:

An individual’s effective tax rate is calculated by dividing total tax expense from line 63 of his 1040 Form by his taxable income from line 43 of that form.

Easy enough, right? For 2016 that came out to 17% for us (much lower than usual probably due to us taking a loss when we sold our house earlier in the year, as well as my wife maybe going back to work?), but for 2015 it was quite higher at a whopping 43%! Can that be right?? This is exactly why I use an accountant as I don’t trust myself to calculate crap haha…

Verdict: above average (I’m gonna say this is both good and bad: bad cuz we’re obviously paying more than the average, but good in that it typically means we’re also *earning more,* as well as giving more back to support our state/country too)

#10. The average American’s Social Security retirement benefit is $1,363/mo

Reason #38 to make sure you’re saving and investing on your own!! Can’t rely on anyone to support you in retirement :( I cant find my login/password to the site at the moment, but here’s what our future payments were estimated at two years ago. I’d imagine it’s only gone up?

(I like how “early retirement” is 62 btw… surely they haven’t come across FIRE blogs! ;))

You can easily access all your own social security stuff these days here: http://ift.tt/1Dgs85A (provided you remember your password!). It’s also helpful when trying to run your Lifetime Wealth Ratio too that I conjured up :) Divide your current net worth by your *total earnings* over your lifetime and see what % of it you still have left! Just make sure to have a box of tissues around as most times it’s pretty depressing, haha… Verdict: above average

#11. Bonus: The average American will spend $165.14 on Thanksgiving expenses this year (via LendEdu)

If only that read Christmas! :) We’ll probably only be spending around $30 or $40 for gas and some side dishes to the dinners we’ll be attending this year (thanks mom and dad!), but I know some are flying all over the place which I’d imagine gets pricey pretty fast. Good thing we love our friends and families! Verdict: below average

(my favorite all-time gift, given to me by Baby Penny!)

BTW, right before I went to publish this I got two more T-Day stats emailed to me, by Ebates:

22% of Americans plan to begin their Black Friday shopping online after Thanksgiving dinner

11% of Americans admit to shopping on their mobile phones during Thanksgiving dinner

Wow…

So there you have it! The average financial stats of your fellow man and woman :)

Where do you land? More average than below average? More below than above?

It looks like I’m mostly above average in the right places and below average in the others, but areas of improvement can be found in both the charity and the effective tax rate areas… I’m still amazed by how all those early retirees pay 0% in taxes btw, even though they’re all millionaires!! Talk about being crafty!

See this post here by Go Curry Cracker to see what I mean: Never Pay Taxes Again (hint: you’ll need to live on far less than you’re probably doing right now to pull this off)

Thanks for playing along! No one else in real life likes talking about this stuff with me ;)

**** PS: Here’s the link again to the Motley Fool article if you want to learn more: 10 Incredible Financial Statistics That Sum Up the Average American

Are You Financially Average? posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

[fesahaawit]

Are You Financially Average?

Mornin’ mornin’!

So last week we went over 15 great financial goals to hit if you wanted to be ABOVE average in this wacko world of ours, but today I thought it would be fun to see just how close we are to being AVERAGE average compared to others ;)

Because why not, right? What else are we going to do today?

Stats are below in bold, followed by my own thoughts & answers… I’ll let you decide which areas you actually want to be average on, and which you don’t ;)

10 Financial Statistics of The Average American

(The data is mostly from 2015 and chalk full of other variables that we should probably pay attention to, but take them for what they’re worth and just play along with this blogger here ;) Big shout to The Motley Fool where I borrowed these stats from.)

#1. The average American gross household income is $71,258

Pretty decent… Our household income this year will be around $110,000 between my wife’s new job and my online projects, but obviously if there’s only one of you in your household it’s going to skew your results :)  Verdict for us: above average

#2. The average American household with debt owes $132,529

Dayuuummm… Although it *does* include mortgages and student loans, cars, etc, so it’s not ALL credit card debt. We’ve opted to go back to renting so we don’t have any mortgages, but we do have a car note with $12,142.79 left which makes our verdict here below average.

#3. The average American gave $5,491 to charity in 2015

Pretty good!!! Probably because the higher earners skew it, but still – no shame in trying to keep up! And outside all the gobs of time I spend helping people with their $$$, we fail here with only giving about $1,000 in cash and donations last year… Though we did give out over $14,000 so far with our Community Fund I helped launch, and my $20/mo charity trick is now auto. pumping out $100/mo to 5 of my favorite organizations, so we are getting better! Verdict: below average (but not for long!)

#4. The average American has a FICO credit score of 700

Much better than I’d expect? I’m not exactly sure what my *FICO* score is, but I do know from last week’s checking that we’re at 829 with Experian and 835 w/ TransUnion and 833 w/ Equifax. So I would assume we’d be in the 800’s as well with FICO. And man are there a lot of different scores out there? You can learn more about most of them here, but again as long as you’re at least monitoring one of them consistently you’ll be just fine. J$ verdict: above average

#5. The average American’s 401(k) balance is $96,288

I no longer have a 401(k) since becoming self-employed, but I do have about $504,000 in my SEP IRA which is an equivalent (minus those glorious free matches!!!) so it’s safe to say we’re way above average here too. You could also probably include IRAs and any other types of retirement accounts here which of course paints a much bigger picture, especially if you don’t even have access to a 401(k) plan.

Here’s a cool graph Motley Fool included that breaks down the average totals by *age* – which is a much fairer comparison. It comes from Vanguard’s 2016 How America Saves report (PDF):

(For more thoughts around this, check out my postings on Twitter and Facebook where there were some pretty lively conversations going in response to this graph!)

#6. The average personal savings rate in the U.S. is 5.5%

Ugh… Although apparently this is up from 1.9% in 2005, so yay? I’m never quite sure exactly how one goes about calculating their savings rate (do you use pre-tax money? After-tax? Does investing count? What about debt payments?) but here’s what I get depending on what I’m including – all based on pre-tax income:

Actual “savings” rate: 0% (all our extra money goes to maxing out retirement accounts and debt)

Investing rate: 26% (SEP IRA, ROTH IRA)

Investing + debt pay off rate: 34% (SEP IRA, ROTH IRA, Car loan)

Verdict: above average

#7. Only 18% of Americans actively contribute to an IRA

Double ugh… I’m not sure what’s considered “active” here (I usually contribute only once a year to max it out vs monthly deposits) but either way not good, America. Not good! J$ verdict: above average

#8. The average American’s tax refund in 2016 was $2,860.

I know people either LOVE getting refunds or think it’s asinine that you “give the government a loan,” but as far as I’m concerned a nice surprise is always better than an ugly one. And I find that when people get a *chunk* of money vs smaller more frequent ones, they tend to apply it more towards bigger goals anyways since it seems to make a much larger difference. So to me it’s all in HOW YOU USE THE MONEY vs when you get it.

As for our typical returns, we usually break even since we pay taxes quarterly, however last year we got an unexpected return of $5,000 when we overpaid on part of some money that came in at the end of the year. Which of course went right back into investments! And again, a much better surprise getting $5,000 back than the opposite ;)

Verdict: above average (not sure how to color code this, haha…)

#9. The average American pays an effective federal income tax rate of 13.5%

Wow! Wouldn’t have ever guessed that! Not that I pay attention too much to this stuff (borrrrringgggg). And similar to the whole savings rate thing I wasn’t quite sure how to calculate this puppy either, however a quick Google search shot me a fast answer and was able to figure it out nicely.

Per Investopedia:

An individual’s effective tax rate is calculated by dividing total tax expense from line 63 of his 1040 Form by his taxable income from line 43 of that form.

Easy enough, right? For 2016 that came out to 17% for us (much lower than usual probably due to us taking a loss when we sold our house earlier in the year, as well as my wife maybe going back to work?), but for 2015 it was quite higher at a whopping 43%! Can that be right?? This is exactly why I use an accountant as I don’t trust myself to calculate crap haha…

Verdict: above average (I’m gonna say this is both good and bad: bad cuz we’re obviously paying more than the average, but good in that it typically means we’re also *earning more,* as well as giving more back to support our state/country too)

#10. The average American’s Social Security retirement benefit is $1,363/mo

Reason #38 to make sure you’re saving and investing on your own!! Can’t rely on anyone to support you in retirement :( I cant find my login/password to the site at the moment, but here’s what our future payments were estimated at two years ago. I’d imagine it’s only gone up?

(I like how “early retirement” is 62 btw… surely they haven’t come across FIRE blogs! ;))

You can easily access all your own social security stuff these days here: http://ift.tt/1Dgs85A (provided you remember your password!). It’s also helpful when trying to run your Lifetime Wealth Ratio too that I conjured up :) Divide your current net worth by your *total earnings* over your lifetime and see what % of it you still have left! Just make sure to have a box of tissues around as most time it’s pretty depressing, haha… Verdict: above average

#11. Bonus: The average American will spend $165.14 on Thanksgiving expenses this year (via LendEdu)

If only that read Christmas! :) We’ll probably only be spending around $30 or $40 for gas and some side dishes to the dinners we’ll be attending this year (thanks mom and dad!), but I know some are flying all over the place which I’d imagine gets pricey pretty fast. Good thing we love our friends and families! Verdict: below average

(my favorite all-time gift, given to me by Baby Penny!)

BTW, right before I went to publish this I got two more T-Day stats emailed to me, by Ebates:

22% off Americans plan to begin their Black Friday shopping online after Thanksgiving dinner

11% of Americans admit to shopping on their mobile phones during Thanksgiving dinner

Wow…

So there you have it! The average financial stats of your fellow man and woman :)

Where do you land? More average than below average? More below than above?

It looks like I’m mostly above average in the right places and below average in the others, but areas of improvement can be found in both the charity and the effective tax rate areas… I’m still amazed by how all those early retirees pay 0% in taxes btw, even though they’re all millionaires!! Talk about being crafty!

See this post here by Go Curry Cracker to see what I mean: Never Pay Taxes Again (hint: you’ll need to live on far less than you’re probably doing right now to pull this off)

Thanks for playing along! No one else in real life likes talking about this stuff with me ;)

**** PS: Here’s the link again to the Motley Fool article if you want to learn more: 10 Incredible Financial Statistics That Sum Up the Average American

Are You Financially Average? posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ