money matters

Well I finally added up some numbers for the purpose of my 2009 taxes. It would appear I grossed more than 90 grand last year and spent more than 30 grand on farm bills. This was greatly helped by a 20 grand crop insuracne check that will probably not happen again for a long time. I really was surprised by how much I paid in bills, I expected that number to be lower. I also thought I would have grossed more, but was under the 100 grand I thought I got myself in. In all likelyhood, or my pessimism, 2010 will be a worse year. I won't have any income from wheat this year. I can' count on crop insuracne to write me a check that I used to pay off my truck and make a downpayment on my house. The grain market might have reached its peak in 2009 and not reach the price level it was at for most of 2009.

I also feel good about what I am offering to my church now. I started off last year giving 20 dollars every week, but have been giving an offering of 45 dollars a week now. Since I don't have a salaried income, I wasn't sure how much I should have been giving. I know or knew that the Bible says to give either 10 or 15 percent, but I settled on 1 percent of the churchs weekly need, based on their bulletein. In effect, if 99 other people were as giving as me, the church would be okay week to week. Surprisingly, the bulletein rarely reports enough offering from the last week to cover their 4500 weekly need. I find it hard to believe that a church that has three sermons or masses every week can't or doesn't have enough people attending to reach this amount. I am going to have to consider giving more. I really feel good about giving money to the church though. I feel that I have been very fortunate the last year or so since I started attending services at hillsboro. Despite not having full time employment, my life is really good as of lately.

Well tomorrow morning I have to go to get my taxes prepared. Should be fun to find out how much I owe my government now. Maybe I will get lucky and get a juror discount.

times typed "oftern"-0