Thank You Uncle Sam...

For reminding me that I have no real net worth.

I find the tax talk humorous, as I have a student assistant of mine who is an accounting major; coworkers with property and IRAs and retirement; my parents who are talking about retirement more and more each passing week (which is bizarre to me, seeing as my dad now takes every Wednesday off, and coming from a man who has taken 4 sick days in his entire adult life, that is quite a feat)...I realized something.

I am worth. Nothing.

I mean, I pay my taxes. I have a decent annual income and its growing with every passing performance review (Thanks State of Maryland). I owed the state of Virginia money this year and I have a car loan so, clearly, a few people are happy to see me being a semi-productive member of society as it means they can take more money from me.

But I need to start investing or buying property or punching out some spawn. I think my tax liability would go way down and really, come tax time, it'd be nice to not resort to filling out the 1040EZ form because I don't really have cause to itemize..well, anything.

My taxes this year, took me :drumroll please: 25 minutes to prepare and file. And that included trying to find my personal property tax bill from last year to see if it would help me get some more money back.

It didn't, just in case anyone is keeping score.

So, if anyone has an island they'd like to sell me, a condo that might be a little less than what you expected and you want to unload it, I've got that $600 stimulus package refund burning a hole in my pocket and I've got to do my part to help jump start the floundering economy. I mean, what else am I going to do with it?

I could go to dinner or by a new pair of sassy shoes, but really, am I the only one who thinks that spending$600 in the face of enormous mortgage and credit card debt is like pissing on a forest fire just so you can say you "did your part?"

I didn't think so.