Tax Bite

My wife and I are pretty good with our money, but often we feel like we skipped something on our tax form. You know, the "Check here for your extra $200 per week" section? (That's the e287-B form, I believe.)

Now, if there's one thing Facebook proves, it's that everyone except you is eating at a great restaurant; driving a cool car; flying to a spiffy place in the South Pacific where your glass-floor cabin is perched above the ocean on stilts. How else can you explain the lifestyles of friends who appear to be just like you? Clearly, they either won the 6/49, or they're deep in hock. And since that can't be true for everybody, my conclusion is that we are all dropping $20's on the street, every day, without knowing it.

Please let that not be true.

What unfortunately is true, is that we are—every one of us—dropping great memories on the street without realizing it. Now, whipping your phone out every five seconds is generally a bad idea. But... that being said, some of the best shots you will ever take of your family are when you're being a silly tourist—even in your own town.

So bring your camera along, Snap as many thoughtful pictures (candid is generally best) as you feel like, but then... CULL THEM MERCILESSLY... THAT NIGHT. If you get three good photos per day on vacation, or just at your local Farmer's Market on Saturday, you're ahead of the game.

Then, in January, when the holiday dust has settled... upload about 60 good photos into an inexpensive photo-book, and order one for each of your extended family members. After a few years, it'll feel like you have stacks of hundred dollar bills on your coffee table, when, in fact, you have something much, much better.