Oh Wise One

When my balance decreases, where does the money I've contributed go?

When the market goes back up, what exactly does my balance represent, the value of the shares I own?

Perhaps I don't understand the fundamentals of 401k's.

How is it that my husband and I owe $4,000 to the IRS? We both claim married zero on our W4, just bought our first home (closing cost write offs), and have manually entered all other deductions applicable into TurboTax and it's still saying we owe $4,000

We have the most amount of money taken out of our checks. This doesn't make sense. We don't have any kids and live in CA.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Is there anyone who is currently employed and absolutely miserable?

I sincerely recognize that I should be grateful for my job, when there are so many people suffering. I'm incredibly grateful for my paycheck, but I'm not grateful for the verbal abuse I have to endure in order to receive that paycheck.

Does anyone else live in this catch 22 scenario? Knows that there are no jobs out there to relieve the agony, therefore are stuck in a position that most people would kill for?

My husband and I recently bought a home that had a pond in the backyard. We were told this was a water garden, not a Koi Pond. Upon draining the pond we found a koi fish and saw all the remaining parts of plumbing for a filtration system. After doing some research we realized that this now Koi Pond once had a filter, which was obviously removed by the seller.

Wasn't it the sellers legal obligation to disclose that either the filter was not coming with the pond or that this was a non-functioning Koi pond? I live in Sacramento, CA.

I know these filters cost $2,000 and he took it for his own personal use. The problem is is took a critical componet of this pond and it now doesn't work. Therefore it was his responsibility to tell us this rather than try to trick us into thinking it was just a pond. He claims he drained the pond a year prior and gave all his fish away.

I work at an advertising agency in the USA and TV is funded by advertisers. Advertisers pay money to local TV stations to solicit their product or service.

I was told in Europe there is some kind of tax that citizens pay to supplement TV (BBC). Is this true that Advertisers don't pay for their products to appear on TV and it's the citizens who pay?

My husband and I recently moved, our 4 year old terrier mix has developed obvious signs of depression. I read on-line that it's common for dogs to become depressed when moving into a new environment.

My question is how do we remedy this? He's extremely anxious when we leave. He'll chew the blinds and cry hysterically. I get the impression he thinks we're never coming back! When we do return he piddles everywhere like he hadn't see us in days.

I feel so bad for him. Does anyone know how we can calm him and get him to return to his normalcy?