I bought my usual $5 soda, but I was shocked to see that the price of a large popcorn is up to $7! They should price it at $100… Then they wouldn’t have to sell nearly as many! I’m still trying to get over charging $5.50 for nachos in Wisconsin.

I haven’t seen Spiderman 3 yet. I didn’t care for Spiderman 2 that much, and the commercials make the latest one look a little silly. I’ll probably wait for that one to come out on video.

Late last week, one of the knobs on our kitchen faucet broke off. We weren’t sure if we wanted to replace the entire faucet or just replace the knob(s). Switching the one working knob back-and-forth between the hot and cold for a few days turned out to be effective motivation to find a solution. I wanted to avoid replacing the entire faucet until we remodeled our kitchen. Unfortunately, finding a replacement knob for our Kohler faucet turned out to be surprisingly difficult. I looked on eBay and at the local Habitat ReStore for a matching knob, but came up empty-handed. I then bought some universal replacement knobs from Lowes, but they had a horrible design (if your hands were even slightly wet, they were difficult to grasp), so we returned them. Unfortunately, the other hardware stores seemed to all have the same lousy selection.

Desperate for a solution, we ended up buying a new faucet. We wanted to get a Kohler to match the rest of the house, but we ended up buying a Delta faucet since it seemed to best match what we were looking for. I think we made the right choice – our new faucet is very nice.

Earlier this week, our garage door opener went on the fritz. The unit had always sucked, but it finally decided to take a shit. I had a new, fancy one installed by American Overhead Door in Appleton. The product was exceptional, but their customer service left some to be desired, but overall, we are quite satisfied.

On our way home from work on Tuesday (Wanda and I carpool), the car stalled at an intersection and the “service engine soon” light came on. I brought it into the mechanic yesterday, which ended up being $300 I will never see again.

We’ve also had a very slow leak in our roof for quite some time. It hasn’t been a big issue, but since winter was (hopefully, finally) over, we decided to have it looked at. We were hoping our roof didn’t need to be replaced since there were also some shingles that were peeling up. By recommendation from my dad, we decided to call Drew’s roofing in De Pere. Fortunately, the roofing guy said that our roof was fine and probably didn’t need to be replaced yet. He also caulked the leak and didn’t charge us anything. I was impressed with their customer service and would recommend them to anyone in the Fox Valley who needs roofing work done.

So far we’ve survived the week, but it’s only Thursday!

• TaxACT – By far the cheapest (state and federal for only $15.95). However, I didn’t think their wizard was as nice as the competition, and I think I ended up getting a larger refund with TurboTax last year. I still think it’s a decent service for the price, but I’d recommend entering your data in another service for comparison.
• TurboTax – I liked this service’s user interface better than the rest, and our refund ended up being slightly higher compared to others last year (probably due to a better understanding of the user interface). They are a little more expensive (I think it was about $40 with state). If you’re price shopping, realize that state filing is not included in their prices.
• H&R Block – About the same price as TurboTax. Their interface wasn’t bad, but I felt more comfortable with TurboTax. I did use them in 2004 because they helped me file a 1099-MISC form because I was confused on how to file it using the other services.

In the end, it might pay to enter your data into more than one service and see which one you are most comfortable with. You don’t have to pay until you actually submit, and they calculate your refund real-time as you enter data.

The total bill came to about $1250.

Because this is a PG-13 blog, let’s just say I almost had a heart attack. That includes a tooth pulling, anesthetic, blood work, and an x-ray. So the lesson for today, kids, is BRUSH YOUR CAT’S TEETH!

It’s a good idea to read your report and make note of accounts you no longer use or accounts you aren’t familiar with. You should contact the creditors of the account you no longer use, as an excess of potential debt can lower your credit score.

Don’t be fooled by web sites offering “free credit reports”. Unless it is the site listed above that is endorsed by the credit bureaus, there is a chance you will get charged through fine-line items (ie, “By accepting this credit report, you are agreeing to subscribe to our credit monitoring service free for 30 days. If you do not cancel before that time, you will be charged $x per month.)

One more thing about credit… Are you sick of receiving credit card solicitations in the mail? You can opt-out unsolicited credit checks by calling 1-888-5OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688) and providing the automated message with some information about yourself (but don’t take my word for it – do a Google search to confirm this is legit for yourself).

So how do you file your taxes?

I very rarely play Powerball because the odds are way too high. I’d rather have a tiny chance at winning $30,000 than a near zero chance of winning millions. For this reason, I usually play Badger 5. Hell, there’s a 1 in 7 chance you can win your $1 back, which I’ve done several times. I even won $50 about a month ago, which more than payed for my tickets this year (Doh, only one number a way from paying off my home equity loan!).

When the Badger 5 jackpot is low, I’ll occasionally play SuperCash, which has a fixed jackpot of $250,000. However, the odds aren’t nearly as good and I haven’t won my dollar back very often. The Wisconsin Lottery is cool because if you collect $5 worth of losing tickets you can play their Super 2nd Chance drawing for $1000. I haven’t won that one yet, though.

Do you play the lottery? If so, which drawings and why?

***Update***

Well, someone in Oregon one the Big One. $340 million bones. I still think the odds of Powerball are a little silly, even before they made them more difficult to win. I was listening to WTAQ this morning and the morning commentators bought something like 120 tickets between them, and didn’t hit the Powerball number (which alone pays $3) on one of them. I’ll stick with my Badger 5, me thinks. I hear they’re also increasing the Supercash jackpot from $250k to $350k.

“Republicans said they were being responsible because the increased borrowing will let the government pay Social Security benefits and its other bills.”

Great, give money to those who were too stupid to save and give the bill to those of us who are already paying for two retirements. They also state they are going to use it to “pay other bills.” Doesn’t a loan payment count as a “bill”? At least Feingold and Kohl voted against it.

On a lighter note, I saw this humorous cartoon by Ted Rall.

• Link: Congress passes $800 billion debt limit hike

Since WSJ Online is a dirty harlot, you have to pay for the article unless you’re referred by a partner site, so:

1. Click here: http://www.digg.com/business_finance/WSJ_com_Wisdom_Folly_in_Turmoil
2. Then click the “WSJ.com – Wisdom, Folly in Turmoil” link just above the article summary.