Author Archives: Jon Lowder

Free Income Tax Help at Truliant

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Truliant is hosting free tax preparation help every Saturday from 9:00 AM to 12 PM starting this Saturday, January 31, through April 11.  From the press release:

The Forsyth Working Families Partnership offers this free tax preparation service through VITA to working families who make $42,000 or less in annual income. VITA started their partnership with local communities to help eligible families collect the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). It is estimated that millions of dollars in EITC go unclaimed by eligible working families every year.

Truliant employees are volunteering their time to this program to offer low-income, working families affordable tax return preparation, encourage savings and increase the number of tax returns completed. 

Truliant Federal Credit Union’s Fred J. Sarda Community Pavilion is located at 3200 Truliant Way. The hours of operation for this free tax preparation service are Saturdays, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., from January 31 through April 11. 

Individuals taking advantage of Truliant’s free service need to bring the following: picture ID, Social Security card or ITIN and the Social Security card of each independent to be claimed, the employer ITIN or Social Security number of child care providers, W-2 form(s) and or 1099(s), last year’s tax return, amount received from the 2008 stimulus package and if applicable, the amount of their 2008 Advanced Child Tax Credit. 


Protect Yourself from the Credit Vultures

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The blog "Get Rich Slowly" has a post on how to avoid five common credit card company "traps":

  1. "As low as 9.99% APR!"
  2. "Up to 5% Cash Back!"   
  3. "0% interest on balance transfers for 12 months!" 
  4. "Your card has a credit limit of $3,000" 
  5. "Any time for any reason" 

The post describes each of the traps and how to deal with them.  Believe me, this is really valuable information.  Most people have no idea how the terms on their credit cards can change and how what seems like a great deal can actually be the stinky end of the stick, at least until they grab the stick and it's too late.

Help for the Kids

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Esbee's post this morning about the effects of job losses and potential job losses on families cuts to the core.  The essential question: how do you reassure your kids whose parents have lost their jobs or whose friends' parents have lost their jobs?  It's the third comment on her post that got to me, and I think it's important enough that I'm sharing it below:

We are noticing an increase in students that are becoming homeless due to job cuts and layoffs. It is heart breaking to know that some of my students don't know where they will stay tonight. They don't know what or if they will eat. I do what I can by having snacks in the classroom, but I can only do so much. A pack of "nabs" isn't going to fill an empty belly. 
Please donate to your child's school's fund for these kids. We really need it now more than ever. The social workers have a fund set up just for such kids. Teachers reccomend them anonymously and the social worker offers aid to the family/student. Parent's can also go to the school to ask for help.

According to this recent story in the Winston-Salem Journal 47.7% of the kids in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County School System qualify for free and reduced lunches and that percentage is expected to rise.  Many of us are struggling to make ends meet, but if you have a spare dime please remember the kids.

Getting Ears Lowered at Hallyburton’s Barber Shop

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I get my hair cut at one of the last bastions of pure testosterone in the Lewisville-Clemmons area: Hallyburton's Barber Shop on the corner of Styers Ferry and Harper Roads.  I love the place because it features the following:

  • Two barber chairs that are older than me, and likely are older than my grandfather.
  • Two barbers who will rib you all day long but are the nicest guys in the world, Steve Hallyburton and David Sowers.
  • Your choice of two old theater seats or two old church pews to sit on while you wait. 
  • A checker board or a deck of cards to play with if you're so inclined. 
  • An atmosphere of having all the time in the world.  Time slows down.
  • A wood burning stove to keep you warm. 
  • NO fashion magazines, but plenty of hunting and car magazines.  Usually there's a copy of that day's newspaper available too. 
  • Great conversation with David, Steve and whoever else happens to be there. My favorite to date was a rather in-depth discourse on the effects of eating the hottest wings from Ronni's. 

As you can tell I like my barber shops old school. Nothing against the Great Clips of the world, but I like my barbering to come with as little froo-froo as possible.  At Hallyburton's the occassional Mom that ventures in with her son for his far-too-delayed buzz cut is treated with respect (the conversation definitely changes) but with the exception of the most hardy the women appear slightly uncomfortable.  I'm sure they feel much as I do when I have to venture into places where they put stuff on your nails, mud on your face or cucumbers on your eyes.  It's just not their cup of tea.

I hear tales of other local "testosteroney" barber shops but I haven't been to any.  Feel free to share if you know of one.  If you're in the Lewisville-Clemmons area stop in and give Steve and David a hello and tell them I sent you:

Hallyburtons Barber Shop
6290 Styers Ferry Road
Clemmons, NC 27012
(336) 766-9372

More Job News in the Triad

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Two more pieces of not very happy news: the Greensboro News & Record is instituting wage freezes and mandating all full and part time employees take five days of unpaid leave this year, and Lincoln Financial, which has offices in Greensboro, is cutting 540 jobs overall but hasn't said how many in Greensboro.

Sprint is cutting 8,000 jobs, Home Depot is cutting 7,000 and Caterpillar is lopping off 20,000.  No telling how many of those jobs will affect the Triad, but the Caterpillar announcement could be significant since the company has operations in Clayton and Sanford.  Home Depot says their job cuts will be in support functions, not customer facing positions in stores so there may not be much effect of the cuts seen here.  Sprint?  Who knows.

Related: Forbes.com has a layoff tracker for the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the US.  Current number as I type this is 330,815.

Wanna Buy a Gas Station in Lewisville?

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There's a gas station – conveniene store – car wash for sale in Lewisville.  Asking price is $675,000.  With the credit market in the state it is I don't know if there are many people out there that are able, or willing, to pull the trigger on that kind of purchase.  Hopefully that doesn't mean we'll be down another small business in Lewisville in a few months.

A Tale of Two High School Sports Stories

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The other day I was watching Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN 2 (link is to audio of show) and they were talking about the girls high school basketball game that featured one team beating the other 100-0.  They were rightly outraged, not by the score but by the fact that the winning team ran a full court press well into the second half and one of the assistant coaches was openly cheering them on to the 100 point mark.  Some folks emailed in to defend the winning team, but the two Mikes rightly pointed out that there are right and honorable ways to play a game and what the winning team did was not that. It's not that you ask your better players to play poorly, you simply ask them to play differently.  Instead of pressing, work on your zone defense.  Instead of pushing fast breaks, work on your offensive sets and try to only score on the inside.  Whatever, there are ways to play hard and not embarass your opponent.

The flip side of the story are the kids that play the game knowing that they are outmatched but giving it their all anyway.  The losing team in that girl's game is one example, but the Greensboro News & Record recently carried a story that offers an even better example.  The swim team on Greensboro's Smith High School has seven swimmers.  That's right, seven.  The day that the reporter went to see them swim they competed against perennial power Grimsley who had 100 swimmers.  Some of the Smith swimmers didn't know how to swim at the beginning of the season, but they continued to work and improve and one swimmer interviewed in the article saw his 50-meter freestyle time drop from 47 seconds to 32 seconds in one month.  

Two stories that highlight the good and bad of sports.