If you see a description starting with COT*PCH on your Capital One bill, it is probably a Capital One Travel Premium Choice Hotel. Since this is rather nondescript if one books multiple hotels of this type through the portal, I noted what hotel this was on the side. Now that I know what to expect when using the Capital One travel portal (especially after COTHTL844-422-6922MA), the abbreviated item is less suspicious.
Planning ahead is important, and I consider the Roth IRA a useful tool for every person who qualifies. That includes babies, who, like everyone else, should think about saving for their future. Because babies are not capable of comprehending what this is, their parent has to think for them. For the 2023 tax year, you can contribute $6,500 if under age 50 or $7,500 if age 50 or older. There are income limits involved, but I doubt any babies even approach it. Even a mere $300 per year for the child’s entire childhood, with no further contributions made past age…
Whenever you buy anything in Taiwan and are given a receipt, you may receive a physical printed out QR ticket along with your receipt. If you are a resident, you have the opportunity to not take a physical printout but instead have it added digitally to your collection. These are entries to a government lottery that was started to incentivize reporting sales and therefore allow the government to collect more of the sales tax owed to them. These QR lottery entries are done as a straight entry into the lottery, not a multiplier. It has led to silly situations such…
If you see something starting with COTHTL (or a full COTHTL844-422-6922MA) on your credit card statement and you have a Capital One card, check whether the amount matches a hotel reservation you made. It is probably a Capital One Travel Hotel charge, meaning that you booked it through the Capital One Travel Portal. I was initially concerned to see a US charge amidst all the converted JPY-USD charges and was a little worried that I was the victim of fraud. After reviewing the dates, I realized, with some relief, that it was simply the charge for the hotel I booked…
I was not an extremely early adopter of Bitcoin, but I owned some a long time ago. When the price rose to about $10 per BTC, I bought myself a collection of 1 gram metals from Amagi Metals. The collection is no longer sold— but now I can show off my 1 gram of lead and 1 gram of aluminum and 1 gram of… well, moving on. I unfortunately had some Bitcoin on MtGox when it fell. I still occasionally receive emails in Japanese to the email I registered with the site. A private wallet with a fraction of a…
An estimated 21 million Bitcoin is irretrievably lost. I have contributed to that number. I first began using Bitcoin in 2012 when a college friend insisted that it was the future and tried to get everyone else he was friends with to use Bitcoin, only send signed and encrypted emails, and to use Tor for any sort of web browsing. I think everyone else eventually gave up or refused to do some of the things. I was in Bitcoin early enough that I was with MtGox— and lost some Bitcoin in the MTGox hack. Anyway, my only retail transaction was…
What is the cost of giving birth? How much does childbirth cost in a hospital? I looked up these and other similar terms after deciding I wanted children and again after getting pregnant, but very few pages actually explained the breakdown of their bills and what sort of insurance they had. I am sharing my costs in case there are others who were trying to read more about the same things. My insurance for this childbirth was Cigna Open Access Plus In-Network with HRA. There is a $4000 deductible and $4000 Out-of-Pocket (OoP) per person, with an $8000 family Out-of-Pocket. The…
Pfizer (PFE) did a share spinoff into Viatris (VTRS) by joining Mylan with Pfizer’s Upjohn. I received a few shares, whole and fractional, and my brokerage sold the fractional. At tax time, my brokerage provided me with a .pdf which I loaded into Turbotax, but the .pdf did not provide the “cost basis” for the fractional 0.021 Viatris share sold and which I was credited for with $0.32. An error was detected and I was requested to add the missing information. How would I do that? As far as I understand, it goes something like this: When we say that…
If you do your own taxes, that is. In 2019, I had the most irritating experience of getting a K-1 for taxes. Dealing with a K-1 was more complicated than the meager amount I received was worth, so I sensibly sold the 3 units (the equivalent of stocks) I owned after doing my 2019 taxes. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to deal with the sale of those shares in my 2020 taxes. I soon discovered that this was even more annoying than the previous year. Most of the information was simple enough to complete from the K-1 and my…