THE GOOD LIFE
11
Mountain Views-News Saturday, January 30, 2016
FINANCIAL PAPERWORK:
WHAT TO KEEP, WHAT TO TOSS
SENIOR HAPPENINGS
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! …January Birthdays*
Gerald Day, Mary Tassop, JudyWebb-Martin, John Johnson, Mary Bickel, Marlene
Enmark, Ross Kellock, Ruth Wolter, Sue Watanabe, Sandy Thistlewaite, Bobbi
Rahmanian, Fran Syverson, Shirley Wolff, Judy Zaretzka and Becky Evans.
* To add your name to this distinguished list, please call the paper at 626.355.2737.
YEAR of birth not required
...................................................................
ACTIVITIES: Unless listed differently, all activities are at
the Hart Park House (Senior Center) 222 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra
Madre
ACTIVITIES AT THE SENIOR CENTER
YWCA San Gabriel Valley - Intervale Senior Cafe
Seniors 60 years of age and up can participate in the YWCA Intervale daily lunch program held
at the Hart Park House Senior Center. Meals are served Monday through Friday at 12:00 pm
and participants are encouraged to arrive by 11:45 am. Meals are a suggested donation of $3.00
for seniors 60 and over or $5.00 for non-senior guests. Daily reservations are necessary, space is
limited. Please reserve your lunch by calling 626-355-0256.
Tech Talk: Held on Monday, January 25th from 1:30-2:30pm. Learn how to use your new
technology devises. Please reserve your space with the Hart Park House by calling 626-355-7394.
Hawaiian and Polynesian Dance Class: Every Tuesday morning from 10am to 11am. Join
instructor Barbara Dempsey as she instructs you in the art of hula.
Bingo: Every Tuesday beginning at 1:00pm. Cards are only $0.25 each! Everyone is welcome to
join. May be canceled if less than 5 people.
Free Blood Pressure Testing: 2nd Tuesday of the month from 11am to 12pm. No appt. is
necessary.
Brain Games: Thursday, January 21st, 10:30am - 11:30am, improve your memory and strengthen
your brain. Activities facilitated by Hugo, Community Liaison for New Wave Home care of
Pasadena.
Free Legal Consultation: Wednesday, January 27th from 10:30am to Noon. Attorney Lem
Makupson is available for legal consultation. He specializes in Family Law, Wills, Trusts, Estates,
and Injury. Appointment are required by calling 626-355-7394.
Balance Class: No Balance Class due to Martin Luther King Holiday.
Chair Yoga: Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:00 to 11:45 am. A suggested donation of $5 at one
of the classes is requested, but is not required.
Case Management: Meets the 2nd Thursday of the month. Case Management services are
provided by the YWCA and provide assistance in a variety of areas. Appointments are required
and can be scheduled by calling the HPH Office at 626-355-7394.
Birthday Celebrations: Every second Thursday of the month at the Hart Park House. The free
birthday cake is provided by the Sierra Madre Civic Club.
Game Day: Every Thursday starting at 12:00pm. (Please note the time change.) A regular group of
seniors play poker. Other games available for use.
Free Strength Training Class: Every Friday from 12:45pm to 1:30pm with Lisa Brandley. The class
utilizes light weights for low impact resistance training. All materials for the class are provided.
Senior Club: Every Saturday at the Hart Park House Senior Center. Brown bag lunch at 11:30am.
Club meeting at noon. Bingo 12:30-3:30pm. Annual Membership is only $10.00.
Dear Savvy Senior,
How long should a person hang on to old receipts, stock
records, tax returns and other financial documents? I have
accumulated boxes full of such papers over the years and
would like to get rid of some of it now that I’m retired.
Getting Organized
Dear Getting,
This is a great time of the year to get rid of unnecessary
or outdated paperwork and to organize your records in
preparation for filing your tax return in the spring. Here’s
a checklist of what to keep and what to toss out, along
with some tips to help you reduce your future paper
accumulation.
Toss Out
· ATM receipts and bank-deposit slips as soon as you
match them up with your monthly statement.
· Credit card receipts after you get your statement, unless
you might return the item or need proof of purchase for a
warranty.
· Credit card statements that do not have a tax-related
expense on them.
· Utility bills when the following month’s bill arrives
showing that your prior payment was received. If you wish
to track utility usage over time, you may want to keep them
for a year, or if you deduct a home office on your taxes keep
them for seven years.
To avoid identity theft, be sure you shred anything you
throw away that contains your personal information. It’s
best to use a crosscut shredder rather than a strip one,
which leaves long paper bands that could be reassembled.
Keep One Year
· Paycheck stubs until you get your W-2 in January to
check its accuracy.
· Bank statements (savings and checking account) to
confirm your 1099s.
· Brokerage, 401(k), IRA and other investment statements
until you get your annual summary (keep longer for tax
purposes if they show a gain or loss).
· Receipts for health care bills in case you qualify for a
medical deduction.
Keep Seven Years
Supporting documents for your taxes, including W-2s,
1099s, and receipts or canceled checks that substantiate
deductions. The IRS usually has up to three years after
you file to audit you but may look back up to six years if
it suspects you substantially underreported income or
committed fraud.
Keep Indefinitely
· Tax returns with proof of filing and payment. You
should keep these for at least seven years, but many experts
recommend you keep them forever because they provide a
record of your financial history.
· IRS forms that you filed when making nondeductible
contributions to a traditional IRA or a Roth conversion.
· Receipts for capital improvements that you’ve made to
your home until seven years after you sell the house.
· Retirement and brokerage account annual statements as
long as you hold those investments.
· Defined-benefit pension plan documents.
· Savings bonds until redeemed.
· Loan documents until the loan is paid off.
· Vehicle titles and registration information as long as you
own the car, boat, truck, or other vehicle.
· Insurance policies as long as you have them.
· Warranties or receipts for big-ticket purchases for as long
as you own the item, to support warranty and insurance
claims.
Keep Forever
Personal and family records like birth certificates, marriage
license, divorce papers, Social Security cards, military
discharge papers and estate-planning documents (power of
attorney, will, trust and advanced directive). Keep these in a
fireproof safe or safe-deposit box.
Reduce Your Paper
To reduce your paper clutter, consider digitizing your
documents by scanning them and converting them into
PDF files so you can store them on your computer and back
them up onto a USB flash drive or external hard drive like
icloud.com or carbonite.com.
Your can also reduce your future paper load by switching
to electronic statements and records whenever possible.
Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box
5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.org. Jim
Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author
of “The Savvy Senior” book.
KATIE Tse.....................This and That
“GREEN MANSIONS!” PART II
Welcome back to Part II of
“Green Mansions!” For those
of you who missed my last
column (and those of you who
wished you had!), here’s a recap. We left our hero,
Anthony Perkins, rushing back into the jungle to
warn Audrey Hepburn, the mysterious “lady of
the forest” and her grandfather, Lee J. Cobb, of
the impending danger awaiting them at the hands
of the local tribe, headed by Henry Silva. (If this
summary lacks essential details, it’s only because
Part 1 was VERY long. I encourage you to watch
the 1959 movie yourself!) Back to the action...
Silva stirred the natives into a blood lust for
Hepburn by falsely accusing her of murdering his
older brother. Perkins desperately searches for
her, but finds Cobb hiding
with an illicit barbequed leg
o’ lamb instead. (Having
grown up in the jungle,
Hepburn’s a real vegetarian
tree-hugger. But a man gets
a hankering for a juicy steak
now and then!)
Cobb also confesses that
he is not Hepburn’s actual
grandfather. In his youth,
Cobb took up with some bad
company who massacred
nearly all the inhabitants of
a small village, from which
Hepburn is descended.
Despite Cobb’s objections,
Perkins spills the beans to
Hepburn, who lashes out at Cobb for lying to her
all these years. The young lovers escape over the
hill to Hepburn’s village, Riolama.
Once there, they find only desolate ruins. By
now, Hepburn has softened to Cobb, and the two
return to find him. But they are too late. Silva has
murdered Cobb in their absence, and now he and
his gang are out to get Hepburn. Being the jungle
chick that she is, Hepburn escapes by scrambling
up a tree. This is just what Silva wanted. “Burn the
jungle witch!” he shouts to his cronies as they stack
kindling around the base of the tree. The smoke
rises and it looks as if Hepburn will be fried to a
crisp. (This is especially bad because her chiffon
dress is probably flammable.)
Unable to climb to Hepburn’s rescue, Perkins
pursues Silva to a waterfall where they duke it out
on the slippery rocks. Silva boasts that, by taking
out the jungle witch, he’s now ready to step in as
the new chief. In a surge of impassioned fury,
Perkins strikes Silva and leaves him floating face
down in the wash.
Perkins wanders through the charred jungle,
but there is no sign of Hepburn. Overcome with
emotion, he falls to his knees and weeps at the sight
of a special flower, now withered, that Hepburn
showed him days before. In the midst of his tears,
Perkins recalls Hepburn telling him to not cry over
the flower when it dies, because, somewhere else in
the jungle, another one is getting ready to bloom.
The “Green Mansions” theme music reaches
a crescendo as Perkins turns to discover Hepburn
standing in a light flooded
clearing. She smiles as
she holds out her hand,
beckoning him to join her.
It’s a happy ending, and I was
enjoying the warm fuzzies
until my Mom shared her
interpretation of the ending.
According to her, Hepburn
did meet a toasty end, which
is confirmed with her words
that “whenever a flower dies,
somewhere else another is
getting ready to bloom.”
Then the ending becomes
like “Somewhere in Time”
with Jane Seymore and
Christopher Reeve reuniting
in a misty afterlife (you gotta watch that one, too,
it’s a real tear-jerker).
I have problems with this interpretation. Having
Perkins join Hepburn in the bright jungle sunrise
implies that either Perkins is dead, too, or that he
sees dead people (e.g., “The Sixth Sense”). I like to
think that Hepburn miraculously escaped the fire
--that’s what I thought when I first saw it at seven
or eight years of age.
By now I imagine that my scintillating summary
of the film has you scouring the Internet for it
(Ha!). If you do happen to watch it, I hope the
alternate endings I’ve posed don’t cloud your
artistic judgment.
Next week, “Plan 9 From Outer Space!” (just
kidding --but that’s a funny one, too!)
SHARE SOME
GOOD NEWS!
“The Kindness of Strangers” feature encourages readers
to share their stories. I can assure you, they will be
uplifting especially in contrast to all the the challenges
and issues we have to deal with daily. So, if you have
something you would like to share, please submit it to: editor@mtnviewsnews.com. It doesn’t
matter where you were or when it happened. Share your good expeiences in hope that it might
bring a little joy and/or inspire someone.
-Susan Henderson, Editor/Publisher MVNews
626-355-5700245 West Sierra Madre BlvdSierra Madre, CA 91024www.TheKensingtonSierraMadre.comRCFE License198601953At first, Dad and I didn’tsee eye to eye about moving toThe Kensington, but sincehe did, we’re both thrilledLimited Senior Living Suites Still AvailableCall or Visit to Reserve Yours Today
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