If you haven’t already, it’s back to work! It was such a great and enjoyable break. Sometimes I think having a week off is worse than having one day off because you get far too comfortable waking up at your leisure, reading a book, drinking coffee, etc.
If that wasn’t bad enough, it gets worse: Your paycheck is lower! That’s right – the take-home from your paycheck is going to be lower because as part of the Fiscal Cliff, the payroll-tax cut didn’t get extended. That means the Social Security deduction for your Federal taxes went back to 6.2% from 4.2%. It was a nice two years at the lower rate, but it was always just a temporary band-aid as part of the Stimulus. Now it’s back to reality!
Your Paycheck is Lower, but the Blog Has Been Busy:
If you’d like to learn a little bit more about me and my story, head on over to Budgeting in the Fun Stuff and read my post. I was featured yesterday as part of the Reader Profile series. A big thanks to Crystal for letting me participate!
Lately I’ve been seeing as many as 25 to 50 junk comments hit my spam folder each day, which is far more than I’m used to seeing. I was scratching my head wondering what in the world was going on.
Then by chance, I figured out what the root cause was: My Money Design has somehow made it back to the front page of Technorati. As matter of fact, we were No. 5 in the finance category!
This comes as a big surprise to me since the last time I checked Technorati a few months ago, my blog was buried somewhere in the 200’s and I figured it would be impossible to ever see the light of day again. Good for me I guess!
Blogs You Should Check Out:
In case you missed them, here are a few great stories you should check out this weekend:
- Work Save Live – 2012 Finances in Review and Our Goals for 2013 (and a $100 Giveaway)
- Frugal Rules – Will You Be Saving Money in 2013?
- Modest Money – How Being Responsible and Managing Finances go Hand in Hand
- Budgeting in the Fun Stuff – Budgeting in the Roommate Stuff
- Enemy of Debt – It’s Never Too Late to Take Control Of Your Life!
- Plunged in Debt – What Would You Do With $2013.00 (Giveaway)?
- Eyes on the Dollar – Hidden Benefits of Foreclosure Hunting
- Canadian Budget Binder – Finances In The New Year + New Budget = Success Formula
- Broke Ass Mommy – Resolutions for 2013.
- Snark Finance – SETTING UP A NEW LIFE AS A YOUNG MOTHER
- Master the Art of Saving – Potential Savings Goal: A Second Car
Carnivals & Mentions:
My Money Design was featured on the following sites this week:
- Eyes on the Dollar – Can’t Take My Eyes Off These Blogs #19- I’m on Vacation
- The Family Finances – Friends of the Family: Holiday Edition
- Club Thrifty – The Money Mail Carnival – Ninth Edition
- Money Master Mom – Marriage Carnival
- Your Personal Finance Pro – Personal Finance Blog Round-Up: Yakezie Carnival
- Young Cheap Living – Carnival of Retirement – New Years Eve 2013 Edition
- Savvy Scott – 2013 Carnival of Financial Planning
Thanks to everyone for linking to my site and enjoying my posts. I really appreciate your support and hope you continue to visit!
Posts This Week:
1) The Future of the U.S. Economy and Why We’ve Still Got a Long Ways to Go
2) Our Long Term Financial Goals and How We’ll Meet Them in the New Year
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I really enjoyed your post on budgeting in the fun stuff.
For some reason over the last week my Technorati rating plunged by over 500 points. I was the number 1 site on the worst movers list. No idea what I did to be treated so harshly…
Glen @ Monster Piggy Bank recently posted..MPB – Pool Room Posts #11
Thanks Glen! I’m sure my 15 minutes of fame on Technorati will be short lived as well (as it did before). For now, I’ll enjoy the free traffic and adsense clicks!
It seems very fickle. Now I’m in the top movers going up (up 528) – I think their site isn’t quite what it used to be…
Glen @ Monster Piggy Bank recently posted..MPB – Pool Room Posts #11
Ha, well good job on being a Top Mover! Hopefully you can also get a nice ride on this roller-coaster!
Askimet had blacklisted me for spammy comments which makes me sad… but I think I got it fixed. Were any of my comments in there?
Lance at Money Life and More recently posted..Personal Finance Round Up, Mentions and Carnivals #37
It wasn’t in my spam folder, but I did have to approve it because it was being held in moderation. Whenever someone types their comment in and its different from one they already have on here, my site automatically holds it back for me to approve.
I’ve been getting loads of spam every day as well and they even show you how many over the course of the year with wordpress which is scary. I have to go through it though as so many Bloggers posts end up in spam for some reason. I’ll go check out your guest post at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff! Thanks for the mention mate. Mr.CBB
Canadian Budget Binder recently posted..December 2012 Canadian Budget Binder Budget Update
Thank goodness for those Spam blocking plugins, right? I remember having to manually delete them all – blah!
You’re welcome for the mention. Please do check out my BIFS post! I think you’ll enjoy it!
Congrats on your ranking. I love pleasant surprises. Thanks for the mention.
Kim@Eyesonthedollar recently posted..4 Money Saving Resolutions for 2013
Thanks! I’m not sure what I did, but I’m riding this one out!
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[...] Welcome Back to Work! Did you Notice Your Paycheck is Lower? at My Money Design [...]
[...] time for budgets My own advisor reminds us that payroll taxes have gone up again this year :0( My money design reminds those south of the border than the US payroll taxes are also higher this year *sigh* fiscal [...]
Woot! My spam increases with my PageRank, as far as I can tell. I’m not on Technorati – the whole process just seemed too hard at the time.
Two more days till I’m back at work – it’s gone really fast, probably because we had visitors for a lot of the time.
eemusings recently posted..The elements of a perfect bank
So someday when I get higher Pagerank, I’ve got more Spam to look forward to! I guess its a small price to pay
Yup, $50 less in my first check of the year. I thought payroll had messed up again and had completely forgotten about the increase. Oh well, it is what it is.
KK @ Student Debt Survivor recently posted..Survivor’s Standouts-1/5/13
You’re absolutely right. There’s no fighting the tax man. All we can do is budget out that money and make use of our tax sheltered savings plans.
Everyone is paying more now. Unfortunately, we don’t hear much in the media about 2% jump in the payroll tax. This means that someone making $50K will see $1K pay cut. Ouch!!
Shilpan recently posted..Should You Rent or Buy?
I’m also surprised there isn’t more media attention about it. I guess the reporters were too busy getting us the latest news on Justin Bieber.
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