Poppy Cedes RSS 2.0 feed

Category archives for Math is hard

October 14, 2008

mozzie not-see

Ohhhhhhh my goodness, I am so voraciously hungry right not, probably not the best time to write up this post. But! I must show the inequities of it all…

Here is an innocent box of Stop & Shop Italian style mozzarella sticks:
box front

And here is the servings information showing 4.5 servings of 3 sticks per box (4.5 * 3 = 13.5 sticks), included with the nutrition information:
servings

And here are the entire contents of the box:
mozzies

1 * 3, 2 * 3, 3 * 3, … and 2 more. 11 sticks. 3 and 2/3 servings.

I attempted to weigh the contents of the box to see if it was the servings information that was wrong or if we got short changed on mozzies, but I had already placed them on the cookie sheet so when I weighed myself I was horrified at the number on the scale and went scurrying off to drown my sorrows in the entire box of mozzies. Either way, I want to point out:

STOP & SHOP IS LYING TO US.

I would like a free box of mozzies now, please. Thanks.

June 13, 2008

It seems like I'm poor, despite the public record to the contrary

I was just staring at my online paycheck (because we're all fancy like that and only have online paychecks for direct deposit people) and… if I didn't know better it would look like I am seriously poor, although not as poor as I should be.

I make X amount of dollars (it's public record, but I'm not gonna just shove it into a post :pfft: ), but I have the following deductions from my check:

Federal Withholding
Medicare
Social Security
State Withholding
Parking (0.56% of pre-tax salary)
Medical (14.0% of pre-tax salary)
Dental ($34.16/month flat rate)
Life Insurance (some mathematical equation that forces me in the end to pay $33,000 by the time I am allowed to retire if I keep this level of insurance and this job [math. ow.])
Retirement Savings (15.0% of pre-tax salary)

I did the math and in the end I am taking home 58% of my paycheck, which mathematically makes no sense since the average government chunk is 35% (or is it 28%? whatever, it's huge) removed, plus the additional 29.56% plus the $34.16 plus the freaky deaky math to do with life insurance. That doesn't add up to 100%. I'm lucky I'm taking home as much as I am. Magic money. This is why I sometimes randomly believe I have a rich relative somewhere who enjoys slipping money into my bank account when I'm not looking, but now that I keep my checkbook balanced even this idea isn't working for me anymore.

Bottom line: I'm clearly bad at math. And I should stop thinking about my future so much.