Author: stlplace

Categories
401k and Personal Finance uber-and-side-hustle

Turbo Tax Desktop and doing tax for eBay and Uber

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Chinese version (translated by Google) is here: 谷歌翻译的中文版在这里。

Turbo Tax web vs Desktop

I switched from Turbo Tax Web version to Desktop version in last 4 years. The main reason is the latter is cheaper (if we consider both the state and tax). It’s probably $40 to $50 cheaper. Before the switch I used the web version for 20 years. I was happy with the web version for the most part: had one or two minor glitches during 20 years journey. One glitch was on me: it was quite a few years ago, 15 to 20 years ago, when I was working for my 1st employer then. That year I purchased the Turbo Tax state (online version) too, and I also purchased the audit defense. But the stupid program allowed me to put in a negative number for the income in the state tax form, and state rejected the tax filing out of box. It was not too difficult to fix that – zero out the number did the trick if my memory is correct. But after that I decided for the state filing I would just use the online PDF form (with calculation capability), and mail in the tax form to the Jeff City instead.

Also, once I made a bad mistake. I installed the desktop version on my personal laptop MacBook Pro 16 inch Intel. And it crashed on me, and I didn’t have backup copy for the Turbo Tax filing file after filing. I recall from my past experience, Turbo Tax usually started from last year’s return, and at one time I was quite worried. Later luckily I was able to find out the actual e-filing from Uncle Sam’s website. Nowadays I store the Turbo Tax filing file on the cloud – feel a bit safer than my local desktop or laptop 🙂

Last tip for Turbo Tax Web: one can always use it for free (without filing), so for example, if you do it manually (say on paper, or via Excel), you can still use Turbo Tax Web, solely for calculation, comparison or verification purpose.

Retailer (where I buy the Turbo Tax software)

I think I paid about $82 for premier at Amazon.com this year. Today (02-02-2025) I saw Costco U city has $15 instant rebate on the top of that ($82). So next year I may buy from Costco instead of Amazon. For Amazon I download the software from their website: used to be Amazon, this year it’s Intuit the company behind Turbo Tax. I expect buying from Costco will be similar.

Do we want Audit Defense?

I got it last year – and I plan to continue to get it this year.

Some notes for me this year

eBay sent me a 1099-K. New for me this year. I am in the process of itemize the cost. This is more tedious than I thought initially. Here is some guidelines from Turbo Tax, btw. I may end up doing it as business too (see Uber below).

(Update 02-24-2025) I did more reading, mainly from

A Tax Filing Factsheet for eBay Sellers (Turbo Tax) and What to do with Form 1099-K (IRS). I decided to go with the Schedule C route (Below Uber is similar).

In my personal opinion, this approach is better than the other Form 8949 approach as implicitly suggested by the Turbo Tax.

Uber driving is also new to me. didn’t send me 1099-K as I didn’t meet their income threshold of $5,000. I mainly followed this Turbo Tax knowledge article as well the Turbo Tax Desktop Premier for this. I took the mileage standard deduction: used the online miles. And I used the tax summary from Uber (available in the Uber Driver App go to Account => Tax Doc) for the online mileages. Overall I am quite happy with the milage deduction (business expense, schedule C).

Summary for reporting taxes for eBay and Uber: again this is new to me. I learned two things: 1) Schedule C for business expense, reporting etc; 2) Refer to IRS website and their document as needed. In the past I mostly rely on Turbo Tax, or google. This time around I still use google, but Google pointed me to the IRS website. It’s good.

Keep things in perspective on Uber driving: the number one priority is always your (driver) safety, passenger safety and overall happiness. Money or tax saving for that matter, should not be a priority compared to the things I just mentioned. It’s more like icing on the cake. The cake itself better to be good – otherwise say if there are too many lemons among passengers, I will quit. This should be applicable to many things in life too, your day job, your other side gigs, and so on. I know I probably say it from somewhat privileged view point – as I do have some savings that allow to me “don’t have to work” for a while, if needed. Again keep things in perspective, I have worked in the USA for almost 25 years. I am at a stage of winding down my day job (career for some more career minded people, no judgement from yours truly here). At the same time, I am thinking about what I want to do after my retirement from my day job. Hint: I posted some plan here. But again, this is subject to change without any notice – the main stakeholders I need to notify is my wife and kids. I want to make sure they are comfortable, and can still splurge as they choose so.

Stocks: one of my favorite topics :-). For my 2 small regular brokerage accounts anyway: one again I traded too much and don’t have much gain to show for. So that’s my main lesson – I need to stick to the winners and hopefully stay away from the losers all together 🙂 Majority of my money (401k, HSA and 529 plans) are in S&P 500 index funds or equivalent. I do have two IRA accounts too: and I trade stocks there, and I am very pleased to announce that my luck there is better than the “2 small regular brokerage accounts” 🙂

State filing is included in the Turbo Tax desktop. One thing I noticed is 529 plan can save some state income taxes. (02-25-2025) Just realized the e-filing for the state is $25 or $40 extra. I decided to file via paper to save that money. (Update 03-04-2025) I sent the state filing tax via USPS mail. The postage is about $3.43 + printing cost which is about 8 cents x 42 pages = $3.36. Total is about $6.79 which is a bit cheaper than about $20 e-filing via Turbo Tax ($25 plus $5 off offer from couple of my Chase CC).

Some Odds and Ends

Probably more than 20 years ago, I recall my big boss has an Excel spreadsheet for tax filing, and he offered to co-workers. I didn’t take the offer. I think it may be a cheaper and better option, but I already fell into the Turbo Tax rabbit hole.

There is a common American saying: only death and taxes are certain 🙂

Other Choices

FreeTaxUSA.com

HR Block

TaxSlayer

Full Disclosure:

Not tax advice. Please consult a professorial tax advisor (an accountant, or a CPA) as needed.

I don’t receive any compensation from Turbo Tax. And I don’t have Inuit $INTU individual stock right now (02-26-2025). The reason I say individual stock is I do have S&P 500 index fund, and I assume $INTU is in the S&P 500.

(Update 03-04-2025) YT: Mass IRS Layoffs — How It Affects Your Tax Refund & Audits! by ClearValue Tax

(Update 03-05-2025) The Tennessean: 2025 tax season off to slow start amid federal layoffs, hiring freeze. Will refunds be affected? What to know

(Update 03-11-2025) Filed and accepted on Tue, Feb 25 – I just saw refund money hit the bank via DD 🙂 Total is about 2 weeks.

Categories
advice and tips Life Life Tips

Don’t always dwelling on the past 不要总是留恋过去

Reading Time: < 1 minute

对过去的留恋可能是人之常情，尤其是对上了年纪的人（大概过了50岁的人可以说是上了年纪？），还有一些曾经辉煌，现在落魄的人。

有一个例子是鲁迅笔下的祥林嫂。实际生活中其实这种情况不少。我感觉我自己有时候也会说/想：想当年，我年轻的时候，blah blah blah.

最近 formerly executive assistant at square, sorry I could not find her profile on LinkedIn now, as I unfollowed her recently. Due to LinkedIn’s algorithm (or AI), it seems quite hard for me to find her again (refer to my recent blog post re: LinkedIn’s search-ability).

PS (02-09-2025) I gave it more thought: I think self pity (e.g., 祥林嫂) and similarly self victimization are probably traits or characteristics of narcism. I didn’t read the psychology behind it. Pure guess on my part.

(Update 10-28-2025) Self pity is the trait Charlie Munger talked about quite a bit, and he thinks that’s one of the most destructive traits.

Value Trap

This just reminded me of one thing or one phenomenon in the stock market or stock trading: value trap. Sometimes I got into it. The past price of stock just reflects the past. Nothing more. But sometimes, people think it a stock drops suddenly and drops a lot, they will think it’s a deal, and rush to buy it. And I have done that many times too, like today I bought some PayPal stocks. And I quickly realized it could be value trap, just like the Polaris Inc stock that I traded a while ago.

Categories
gadgets

Set Up Linksys Velop Mesh Home WiFi System

Reading Time: 2 minutes

(Update 11-16-2025) Last few days I have encountered some intermittent issues on this Velop Wifi. And unplugging followed by plugging back in didn’t do the trick this time. So I did a reset, basically I factory reset every node to factory setting, and setup the Wifi network again. It seems now the WiFi is working as expected. A bonus point is this time I was able to add the 2nd child node successfully.

I also updated the firmware for one of the nodes. Now I feel like a network engineer 🙂

I also noticed that sometimes the LinkSys app will hang, and my workaround is to delete the app, and installed the app again. It seems did the trick. I did tried to close and re-open a few times. Sometimes that would work too. But “delete and re-install” did solve one hanging issue for me. I know it’s a bit extreme. Overall the app is not the best quality, let me add.

(Original 02-25-2025) I bought the system a while ago from Woot: it’s a refurbished product. Today I decided to set it up.

It’s done mostly via the Linksys app (iOS, android). I only have iOS so I can only comment on iOS: I think it’s good. It prompt me for the 1st node I just plugged in, and the node was also connected to the Internet (via the modem). Mainly I just tap and follow along.

The tricky part is add the 2nd node, my refurbished pack has 2 nodes total. Initially the app cannot find the child node (the 2nd node). Took me a while to realize I need to move this node closer to the parent node, and I did. After that I can see the 2nd node had the “Solid Purple” which means Node is ready for setup: and the rest is the history. Here are the explanations for the different colors.

After the successful pairing I can move the child node upstairs: and hopefully it can make the overall WiFi situation better at my home. Earlier I did try the “repeater mode” for my older Linksys WiFi router but it had some issues.

PS: I found out by default wordpress will use a very old timestamp for my post – it was year 2013 because I just reused it here. Then I updated it by just updating the timestamp.

PS (02-03-2025) I decided to get another Linksys VLP01 unit from eBay as I think it may improve the coverage when I work at front yard.

Categories
advice and tips Chinese articles video

A list of Chinese YouTubers

Reading Time: 3 minutes

By Chinese I meant Mandarin Chinese. First, please note in this list I am not going to comment on those 键政 (literally translation: keyboard politicking, or discuss politics via keyboard, link here is from Wikipedia). Not a complete list. Will be updated from time to time. There are a few special topics such as finance and cooking, and I may add below or create separate post.

Good

(Update 05-25-2025) 行者东谈西说。Here he talked about when/how/why he started the YouTube channel (自媒体). My impression is he is based in SH, and he is very much grounded re: his content. He has background in media and design, and he wanted to create good documentaries.

Jeff科技视角: he talks a lot on technology, and sometimes he touches stocks too: such as this recent one on NVDA, and PDD. I believe Jeff is a Chinese guy who lives in Canada, and he has direct experience in the IT industry. In fact IT is probably still his day job. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he said: such as this one on AAPL (Apple Inc). He touches some interesting topic such as this one – 【第284期】从内地“奋斗逼”整顿香港职场说起

Teacher Mike 麦克老师: I noticed him during pandemic (the lockdown). He is American, and he married a girl from Shanghai, they lived in Shanghai then. They came back to the USA in year 2023. He is a YouTuber and he talks English to ESL learners. His mandarin is also very good.

This is his most recent video – I decided to go back to Shanghai – he has a nice tip on the Saily app (a cheap/economy international data roaming app by NordVPN, available on App store).

刘伟元的旅行: he is actually from my hometown (Ningbo, Zhejiang province, China). He is a travel vlogger (video blogger). This is his self intro: 大家好，我是刘伟元（旅行频道）单人单车骑行中国，自己拍摄视频，自己手机剪辑视频
无团队，无签约，希望大家能够喜欢，不要忘记订阅我喔每天中午更新旅行日常（我们视频中见哦）. He has strong Ningbo accent in his mandarin – which reminds me of my old friends in Ningbo. His recent 冬季騎行川藏中線 trip is extremely difficult. Personally, I’ve never been to Tibet. I have been to Jiuzaigou (Si’Chuan province) once about 20 years ago. This is one video – 冬季騎行川藏中線，道路結冰天黑被困雪山山頂，半夜被狼聲嚇醒 – YouTube

Since I am on the travel, I recall seeing videos from 阿軻在路上AKe on the road and this one left me impressions – 古巴最后的华人，曾经10万华人为何只剩下不到100人，发生了什么？【Last Chinese in Cuba. And I haven’t watched a lot of new videos from his channel since then though. I could watched his video on a south America country (not very well developed) but could not find the video though.

北美天馬行: a Chinese couple, who are a few years older than me, retired and are traveling full time now. They also make some money from YouTube.

TheDerekShow: I like Derek. Derek is from Tian’jin, and he talked about common topics among Asian/Chinese Americans. Sometimes he will share stories from the audience (with permission and privacy). Here is one – 作为亚裔美国人，怎么看待DEI 多元化？平权行动会变成少数人的特权吗

20岁了还没去过星巴克: I used to watch his YT videos quite a bit, especially during pandemic. I watched less recently. Don’t know why. Here is one taken in Australia.

Okay

罗小曼在西安One day in Xi’an: this is actually one of the first China YouTubers I watched (also during pandemic), but I got tired of them for two things: 1) They talked a lot about going aboard, but they never did (not even for a visit), it seems to me they are just talking about it; 2) They started to monetize via selling product in the video. The products are somewhat like “snake oil”.

Bad

Mike是麦克 : initially I found out he has some decent knowledge on China car industry (he used to be a technical od engineer in the Internal Combustion Engine powered car industry. It seems his original business is in the investors immigration arena. I understand there are many rich Chinese people want to get the US green card: demand is not an issue. The main thing here is not actually providing best service (this is similar to the financial service, or financial advisory sector), but on sales and marketing, in other words persuade potential customers so that they would believe his company (or himself) is most experienced or qualified to providing immigration consulting.

The main reason I realized his YouTube channel is bad: it seems to me he has no moral ground when he pumps cryptos (this video) and/or betting on Nvidia earnings.

If you know me in person, or if you are in my WeChat stock group chat, you may know both are big no-no for me.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Politics

America poverty issue – series I

Reading Time: 2 minutes

My 1st impression on America

In summer 1997 when I 1st came to the USA, I noticed the street at Rolla (middle of Missouri) was quite clean. It’s just I was in a honeymoon period with America and I didn’t notice.

In recent years I saw more panhandlers at intersections (also seeing panhandlers playing fake violin too); this is not entirely new. But it’s getting worse nowadays.

At Louisiana, people got crazy at Walmart, old story (I wrote this a while ago):

The food stamp program, we all learned a few months ago, the madness at Louisiana Walmart store, basically when the food stamp recipients got opportunity to shop “unlimited”, they don’t have much self control.

Recent I had opportunity to have a new neighbor: sometimes things made me to think “Is poverty is a habit or a mindset”. Some of the things I think they can potentially improve on – less eat out or door dash delivery; in addition to cook more, be more self-sufficient overall, for example clean up their own snow on driveway, walk to the grocery store or gas station and so on.

I recall when I was new to the US, I shop at Aldi and discount store near Rolla. I also lived in dirt cheap or government subsidized apartment and drove old car. I recall the rent for the 1st apartment was about $70 a month back in 1997. It doesn’t have air conditioning for summer.

At my 1st real job in St. Louis: I noticed cleaning lady always brought a brown bag when came in the pm cleaning duty. But I cannot say for sure that she brought that brown bag, or she bought food from nearby Burger King every time. If it’s the latter, it would probably cost her at least one hour of the custodian work for that fast food. Adding up bus fees, I don’t think she has much left for her 2 to 3 hours office cleaning part time work.

Things we can do or have some control

Be kind to others.

Also, trust but verify. Refer to my old car accident: 最倒霉的一次, 过绿灯时车被一个黑人撞了(估计是急着去上班). 跟她说好大家把车都停到加油站, 结果她趁机跑掉. 第二天自己当了一回侦探把她抓到, 她又没有买保险.

Resiliency

Teach our kids right: to be expanded

YouTube Videos

Or those problems may have existed 27 years ago? Look at the PBS documentary by Bill Moyer Two American Families: 1991-2024 (full documentary) | FRONTLINE below.

Also another one The Working Poor | The Price of the American Dream | ENDEVR Documentary made by ENDEVRDocs. This reminds me of the Movie The_Florida_Project that I watched a while ago.

To be watched for me: PBS Left Behind

What’s Being Hidden: Questions persist in deadly Amazon warehouse tornado investigation

Why I am living in my car/suv

Last but not least: today’s YT video I took when I was doing morning walk at the Stacy Park

Odds and Ends

A while back, I do some travel for work. And also, it was post 9-11, airlines were trying to charge people for checking in luggage. So, what happens is people check in the luggage at the gate, because for smaller airplanes, we cannot carry on large carry on or luggage anyway, note that doesn’t cost money. For a while, especially in cold winter, when we got off the airplane, and waited there for the luggage. I would think: are we at a developing country? Somehow that left me impression.

Categories
Fun Fun Video

Happy Lunar New Year!

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is a big thing in China and a few other Asian countries, such as Vietnam.

My YT Video today, in Chinese. I talked about 新年快乐 at the end.

Btw, Five Oaks on Warson, the new Olivette community center has two events for the Lunar New Year on Feb 6 and 8.

PS:

Because I have two new years. I can make another new year resolution 🙂

I was thinking about what part time gig I wanted to do, as I am thinking about stopping Uber Driving. I felt the pay is too low, and there may be some unknown risk, and definitely some extra work say if I drive for Uber Health or Uber Care. While I do charity work or give money to charity org sometimes, I don’t want to mix it with my Uber driving. My own happiness and wellbeing are still top priority in all cases.

Right now I am thinking be a part time real estate agent (YT Video How To Become a Real Estate Agent in Missouri)

Categories
gadgets iOS

Bought and setup new iPad for my 10-year-old

Reading Time: 3 minutes

(Original 2025-01-27) Last week, my 10-year-old accidentally broke her old iPad (iPad gen 7th 32gb space gray). My 14-year-old said partial reason was the case was broken and didn’t provide enough projection. I was not upset about it, as this sort of thing is a part of life nowadays. The iPhone and iPad glasses are fragile, and they tend to break, if they land on hard surfaces. Our old daughter made a similar but slightly more costly mistake on my old iPhone XR about 14 months ago. That’s also how I got my new iPhone 15 shortly after, so that I can give my old iPhone 12 to her.

I did offer her (10-year-old) a new iPad recently as her current one is running out of space and cannot update to newer versions of iOS or iPad OS. That caused some issues such as she could not install certain apps 🙁

How we setup her new iPad (iPad 10th gen, we bought the pink one). Mainly we setup her own Apple account this time. In terms of new iPad setup, I used Mac Mini to transfer a backup copy of her old iPad to Mac Mini, then from Mac Mini I transferred that content to her new iPad. We used the USB cables in both instances (which is faster than Wi-Fi).

Setup her own Apple account took some time. It’s a child account and has less privilege than mine. Initially we tried to log into her new iPad, we were not successful. Took a few attempts. As her dad, I can see her account from my iCloud account.

After setting everything setup, I signed out from her new iPad (old iPad was using my iCloud account). And signed in using her own account. After that I need to authorize her to download couple apps or update them. Also, for Roblox, I believe the minimum age is 12, so I chose 12+ in the initial iPad setup. The rest are mostly default, such as Apple Pay (no credit card for now, which means she needs my attention to buy something).

Last but not least, I plan to bring the broken iPad in my upcoming China summer trip: hopefully I can find someone to fix it in a reasonable cost, and I plan to use it myself. It will be my 2nd personal iPad if it works out. Last summer I did bring back the broken iPhone XR and had it repaired, it worked only for a brief period, and I eventually did sell it on eBay – I explicitly listed the conditions and showed the pictures of the phone there. I may do it same if things don’t work out. At least, I don’t want to sell the broken iPad AS IS. (Update: actually I ended up selling the broken iPad as is, just like how I sold my broken iPhone). In both cases I erase everything from the device, and the buyer is likely going to use the device for the parts. Because although the screen is broken, the buyer can use other parts on the device as they are still good.

PS (02-07-2025) Today I learned how to Force Restart the iPad

Update (12-10-2025) I had to force restart my daughter’s school iPad (this time I refreshed my memory by watching this YouTube video). I suspect the hard case probably has something to do with the iPad being locked up like this. I recall last time (Feb 2025, refer to the above comment), the iPad was also in a hard case (it appears Google Gemini disagree with me on this).

“Locking Up” in Error If you mean the iPad becomes completely unresponsive or frozen, this is a technical issue and generally not a direct result of the case material itself (hard plastic or polycarbonate).”

Btw, I added some comments to the above YouTube video:

This is even better than Apple’s own instructions: which I followed but didn’t work. Note we just need to press (release) the volume down button, then press (release) the volume up button, at last hold the main button. Apple’s instructions led me to do an “extra” push and release – we just need a normal push and release on those 2 volume buttons.

Categories
uber-and-side-hustle

Uber driving tips

Reading Time: 8 minutes

(03-01-2025) I just realized today is Madi Gras. This morning I drove 3 trips. First trip: from Rock Hill (near old Warson road) to Kirkwood. 2nd trip: from Kirkwood to South County. Last trip: I drove back to CC, drove a gentleman across the Olive road, from the Courtyard Hotel to the office building across the street. The last trip was worth the money as I needed to come home.

I also had a minor issue when the train was blocking the Geyer road. I had to use Apple Map to make a detour, before switching back to Uber Driver app. This is the 1st time I used Apple Map instead of Uber Driver map for navigation because of road/traffic condition.

At about 1 pm, I also realized it was Madi Gras celebration and no wonder the Uber Driver app shows quite busy and surge prices in many areas. And I also recall my passenger brought beer to friends’ house and he sounds like opened the beer can in my minivan – I didn’t look whether open drinking in the car is legal or not (many years ago I heard from friends who have lived in NY saying it’s illegal in NYC).

(02-16-2025) I drove 2 trips today. One in the early morning, and another one between 10 and 11 am when I was taking my 10 year old to her drawing class (I didn’t have much to do, plus it was too cold to walk outside today). I didn’t know or anticipate we would have snow overnight. The first trip has two legs, the 1st one is from near the Costco Business Center (St. John) to Maplewood (the lady dropped her kids there), then from Maplewood I drove the passenger to a senior living home in the Tower Grove neighborhood where the lady worked for 12 years so far. It’s on Magnolia road, north of Tower Grove park. So overall my minivan has been helpful because I carried 4 people for the 1st leg of the trip (the longer one too).

(02-14-2025) It seems Uber is getting cheaper comparing my Uber trip to airport back in 11/27/2019 vs today I drove a passenger to the Airport (comparable location). I cannot ask passenger how much she paid, but I am using 40% for Uber’s cut. $9.42/0.6 + $3 (tip) = $18.70. In 11/27/2019 I paid $21.48 for trip from my home to STL. I realized one factor: the trip starts at 4:46 am (vs 7:12 am). Bogleheads has a thread too.

Perhaps more importantly, I picked up a trip when I was near the airport, and now I realized it was not worth my effort moneywise, it’s from 63121 near highway 70, to St. Mary High School in South City: 16.5 miles and 28 minutes one way, my fare (earning) is $14.41. Note the plus side – I got to see or drive some of the places I haven’t driven until today, from the north county, north city, downtown (gateway arch) to the South City. I saw the Love gas station, the factory or warehouses, 1st time driving into downtown from highway 70, and transition to 55. Many things look pretty impressive: including the Budweiser plant and the St. Mary HS.

I should probably stick to my one trip a day pledge 🙂 || The reason I turned on the “accept new request” thing is I thought I may be able to pick up a trip starting from airport, after the drop off, it happened to me once – but I guess that kind of luck is rare.

(02-10-2025) I continued Uber driving this morning. I got a repeating customer. Note on Uber a rider cannot designate a driver, but he/she can choose service (Uber X, Uber XL etc.) and so on. The matching part is determined by the system (platform). I think from now on, on weekdays, I am going to just do one trip in the morning (with the exception of airport ride). I am also going to just accept the pickup within 10 minutes of driving.

(Update 02-09-2025) I resumed my Uber driving today. From now on, I will probably only drive on Saturday and Sunday, couple hours at most each day.

(Update 02-08-2025) More about Go Go Grandparents ride (here is a reddit thread if you are interested). Now I recollect, the Go Go Grandparents people kind of tricked me in some way, because initially it was a ride for $4 or $5 and it’s a one way trip (probably from the old gentleman’s home to the McDonald’s at Maplewood, off Hanley road, near Home Depot store). Then once I was on the way (after took the rider), Go Go Grandparents updated the trip, so that I can also bring the gentleman home: made it a round trip. The total is about $7. But because the rider asked for extra stop at the gas station, and I need to help him get off the car, back out my car, etc., it made my 2nd already booked trip a bit late – it’s possible the rider for 2nd trip gave me a score of 4 because of that.

A side note of this is: the starting address is across the street from the real house the gentleman was living in (because I drop back to his home, and I have the address, which I dropped off his phone later, btw). I don’t know why the discrepancy. The house was a bit run-down, which seems to match the old gentleman’s life stage. I saw broken down car in the backyard. Next time, if I ever encounter similar issue (lost item in my car), I would take a picture so that it would help me resolving the issue.

Before the trip on 01-28-2025, I did two trips that were either Uber Health or called by people like Go Go Grandparent. I mentioned one on 01-23-2025 (see below). In another case, I just drove a gentleman (a veteran) from his home to BJC in central west end. I don’t mind drive people for medical appointments etc., but from now on 02-09-2025 I will probably just drive on weekends (leisure time), as well as not taking Go Go Grandparent (not sure how best to distinguish/decline).

(Update 02-03-2025) Rideshare Safety Tips: A Complete Guide

(Update 01-28-2025) Once again please be aware of Uber Health – or those rides arranged by the Caregivers. I got such one again this morning: the ride is taking a gentleman to McDonald’s, order food, and take him back. On the way back he asked me to stop by the gas station: he said he left his debit card there last time. I did him the favor in terms of the extra stop. I also helped him the food and drink during drop off to his home. But he forgot his phone (left it on the seat) in the end. I had to make an extra stop and drop off his phone after I drop off my 2nd passenger. Last but not least, it seems between them I got a 4 star. Later I got a call from gogograndparent (FB page for GGGP) that they are the Uber coordinator. It went to my voice mail as I usually don’t pick up phone from stranger. Looks like they are Chicago based.

This is probably going to be my last Uber driving for a while. I am not overly concerned about the phone itself, but it seems there are quite a few caregiver responsibilities that comes with this kind of Uber driving. Also the customer service stuff (which I got a glimplse when I worked for Mastercard). I think ideally I want to be like the Costco and pick the ideal customers.

Now I am thinking about becoming real estate agent next (part time though).

(Update 01-23-2025) I did a few more trips this week, including during the deep freeze (Sunday to Wednesday morning). I feel some people are appreciative: e.g., on Sunday I dropped off a caregiver from apartment near my home to Delmar Garden, a senior living place near 141 and 64. The lady told me one driver bailed on her: she gave me $5 tip. Yesterday I drove a lady from her home to dental appointment: she gave me $5 tip too. Another trip was for a WUSTL undergrad (senior) from his home to medical school. The day before it was similar: drove a nurse from Mercy Creve Coeur campus to her apartment; then drove a medical school student to WUSTL medical campus.

This morning, I declined a few far out of way trips (I think it’s a bit too much if I need to drive 15 to 20 minutes to pick up someone, via highway). I picked up a lady at Westport and drop her off STL Lambert International airport. On the way we stopped by the Panera Bread at Westport (at her request). She gave me $7 tip.

Today also marks the day that I drove 100 trips (I started on 10-13-2024, as shown in my blog post here). Technically I think it’s 101. As I drove for an old lady after I cancelled the trip because she didn’t respond in time. Uber did give me the money via adjustment later on. Below was the story on Jan 13, 2025 (note the temperature was low, but more importantly road condition was still not perfect after the snow storm).

A bit unusual Uber driving experience this morning. I picked up the ride during my 1st trip. Just as I was going to pick up the passenger for this particular ride (2nd trip), the Uber platform told me the passenger doesn’t do text, via a medical (care) coordinator. I arrived the apartment, did call, text to the number given by the platform. No response. But just as I cancelled the trip, and ready to leave, I saw the passenger – an old woman with cane. She is going to the Mercy Hospital in Creve Coeur. The parking lot for the apartment is both icy and slippery, and I slipped, and almost fell. She said she was just locking her door. I said: okay I will take you. I drove her to the Mercy Hospital which I briefly worked for 18 months between 2013 and 2015. She said she didn’t eat breakfast – somehow, she reminded me of my grandma and my parents nowadays (as they are aging).

(Original 01-18-2025) Last Sunday, as I dropped off one passenger on United Airline gate, the next ride came. My lesson learned: keep the Uber Driving app online. In the past, sometimes I turned off new request when I drove into airport dropping off passengers.

This evening, I dropped off a friend at Southwest Terminal 2. But the Uber Driving app told me to go to the STL waiting lot. I was hoping to get a ride right there, and I was not going to waiting lot.

Some safety features for the drivers

Don’t drive during the night, or early mornings, basically when it’s dark outside. Quite recently, once I woke up early, it was New Year’s Day (01-01-2025), as I drove around for Uber, I picked up a ride for 2 guys. I was not 100% sure what those 2 guys were doing, I suspect they were drinking and f?!x around, as I heard a bit of their conversation re: women etc. I have zero intention to learn their business. There was a small incident during pickup too, I parked, one guy came aboard: he took the seat behind me. Just as I was pulling off, I saw another guy pull my door or knock on the windshield, asking me to stop. Turns out he is another passenger. The ride was not eventually, until the end, turns out two guys have a slightly different destinations: one guy lives about one mile from another. They did give me $10, and after my Uber ride is over, I used Apple map for navigation dropped off the other guy. Note Uber does allow for multiple stops and they are probably not sophisticated Uber users and didn’t use this multi stop feature.

Set the minimum rider star rating (score) to 4.5, unfortunately we need to do it every time we go online. I used to set minimum to 4.5, but the article says Any lower than 4.6 could be a potential issue, because it’s at this point that Uber can consider deactivating your account.

I saw from this Reddit thread one driver says 4.85 for Uber. But I also saw some passenger’s rebuttal. Just copy one back and forth below:

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Driver: Anything under a 4.8 is a no-go. 10 years driving rideshare.

Rider: I am 4.79, always respectful and tip well. Just had a few too many drivers give me a 4 instead of a 5. The rating system is BS and you are losing money by rejecting perfectly good passengers. Now if someone had a 4.2 or 4.1, I’d understand why you wouldnt pick them up.

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Go offline if we are not familiar with the destination or area: I did this once at East St. Louis. I didn’t realize the ride was going to East St. Louis at the beginning. It appears a security guard was getting off work at Clayton and went back his home in East STL.

I will add more as I think of some more tips.

Last but not least: some other blog posts I wrote re: Uber driving

More Uber driving and tips I learned

Drove for Uber the 1st time – 我在美国开优步

Uber Official YT Channel – Earning with Uber

Categories
advice and tips kids

My younger kid’s Roblox AdoptMe account got hacked

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Around November 5 of last year (year 2024), my 10-year-old’s #Robox #AdoptMe account got hacked, and most of all her virtual belongings were gone. My thoughts in Mandarin Chinese via YT.

(Nov 12, 2024) Some random thoughts on the security online including the kid’s Roblox games and adults FB activities. A few weeks ago, I was a bit surprised to find out my younger daughter’s #Roblox account was hacked, and all her virtual goods and points in her AdoptMe game were stolen. I had some responsibility because she used my Gmail as the registration email and I didn’t promptly go to her account shortly after I receive an email alert that morning (someone in Kazakhstan logged into her account).

On Nov 11, I realized one post in one FB private group that I am an admin, was actual spam, about 10 days after I saw it. The scammer was trying to sell some t-shirt (spirit wear), from 1st look, appears to be legit. But after some reasoning, I determined it was a scam. I banned the offender along with 2 more similar offenders.

A few weeks ago, during the winter break, I enabled the two-factor authentication for her Roblox account, after another incident in which someone tries to break into her account when she was playing the game on iPad.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance advice and tips Edu-and-Ladue-School kids

More on 529 plans

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About 14 or 15 years ago when my old daughter was new born, I saved some money and put it into her 529 plan. About a year later, I wrote this blog post Some questions about 529 plan.

I haven’t put in much new money into her 529 plan since the early days, and for our younger daughter I did open an account for her, but I only put in couple hundreds dollars. I know I know: but it’s not because we favorite one daughter over another. It’s mostly because the money is tight, and I think 529 plan had one downside: the money can only be used for higher education (college etc.). For me flexibility is important as I was also thinking about retirement – I mean quitting my 9 to 5 job, and potentially do something else I would enjoy more: and potentially with a smaller paycheck too.

529 plan had some change to the rules recently. This is a big one: You can now transfer some 529 amounts to a Roth IRA.

Note I am late to the Roth IRA party too. Actually I opened a Roth IRA (my first) at Robinhood App last year (after the tax day). So my one year anniversary will come up this April 🙂

College cost, along with healthcare cost and housing are top three most expensive things Americans pay in last 20+ years. If there is anything we can alleviate or do, we should.

Traditionally I am under impression as in America 18 year old is considered adult (or beginning of adulthood), American parents share some college cost with the kids, in general or on average. I have seen two extremes: parents pay all; parents pay nothing. I also saw two kinds of students too: those who work hard and do their best; those who quit and had to drop their classes or get an “F”.

There is no one size fit all for the college cost (sharing cost, or not) among all the families. For me personally, I would try my best to pay off my kids (I have two) college cost (tuition plus living cost). Anything they earn: scholarship, part time job are icing on the cake.

That’s the main motivation factor behind my investing and uber driving (or other side gigs, ideally $500 an hour consulting will work out better 🙂

FAQs

Do I have to open 529 plan in my state (the state I live in)?

No. See this Answers to Questions about 529 Plans in Different States for longer answer.

What state plan do you recommend?

Ohio 529 collegeadvantage plan. Sorry show me state 🙂 Also you may want to look at the answer to the next question.

What are the best 529 plans in 2025?

Forbes thinks those are the best.

What if my kid is already in high school?

Better late than never in terms of saving. However, you do need to think about the investment options, your tolerance for risk and market volatility, etc. I know for my better half (my wife), she is pretty much risk averse, and hates volatility. So in those cases, you may consider the bond investment options vs. stock mutual fund.