I’m in Kansas. And I know it’s tax deductible but I generally don’t keep track even though I know I should. Mileage is a pittance, it’s about three miles round trip. I should file the receipts away when I spend $50 at the hardware store, I know!!!
And I drive a Tesla, so no gas! Electricity costs me… 0.275kWh/mi times three, so 0.825kWh total, at $0.12 per kWh, call it a dime.
People still have to itemize? Standard deduction was raised so high (thanks, Trump!) that my annual mortgage interest and property taxes are below it.
Yeah as I was typing that I was thinking you had a Tesla. If you know roughly how many trips you took, just go with that. 17 round trips from home to school at 3 miles per round trip = 51 miles 34 one-way trips at ROUND(1.5,0) = 2 miles each way = 68 miles plus 5 trips to the hardware store at 8 miles = 68 + 40 = 128 miles = $18
No one is ever remotely going to question it.
Receipts are great, but if you have a rough idea of what you spent at the hardware & grocery stores just claim it. Again, they’re not going to question it and you really did spend the money so it’s not dishonest either.
Also one of the reasons I say receipts are great is when it’s a lot of little things people tend to underestimate. I don’t know how often people have come to me saying “I forgot the envelope of receipts at home, but for now let’s call it $200 which I think is pretty close, and I’ll drop by next week with the actual number. Next week they show up with receipts totaling $537.82.
So pay for the robotics stuff separately and throw the receipts in an envelope when you get home so you have a better number next year, but this year go with your best guess.
There are many many more teachers than there are actuaries, and they are paid much much less (even in countries and states that value education), so the supply/demand equilibrium will ensure this is true.
However, having done both, I can say that it is much much harder to be a very good teacher than it is to be a very good actuary.
Back on the thread topic, my youngest’s teacher will get over $700 from her class of ~15 kids this Christmas.
Don’t forget how to itemize. As I’m sure we’ll be forcibly reminded this coming summer and fall, those changes will expire after 2025 (barring legislative action).
Agree with this assessment. Most actuaries could be mediocre teachers, and most teachers (math or science) could be actuaries. The skills necessary to excel at teaching are much rarer than actuary skills imo.
Depends. Many fewer people itemize now than in the past, for sure. And the weird SALT cap rules mean people using the “Single” filing status are most likely to itemize.
Standard deduction for 2023 is $13,850 for a single person. If you’ve got $10,000 of SALT deductions then that’s only $3,850 of other stuff which includes mortgage interest, charitable giving, and gambling losses that are offset by winnings. That’s going to include a lot of middle class & higher folks, especially if they own their own home.
Older married folks with lower mortgage balances locked in at a low fixed interest rate are far less likely to get to the $27,700 - $10,000 SALT = $17,700 of mortgage interest, charitable giving, and gambling losses. It’s when their income drops and they start having deductible medical expenses that they start itemizing again.
None of the teachers I know could pass even the entry level actuarial exams.
It might vary by region. If we’re talking math or science teachers I’m pretty sure most of the local teachers could pass the basic stats and calculus stuff on the early exams. After that they could be fine pushing spreadsheets.
It might also vary by the university attended. I know folks who struggled with the early actuarial exams who hadn’t been able to get into the tougher universities. The university I went to had very high academic standards and any honours math student there who wrote the calculus exam would get a 9 or 10 without studying. In contrast I know students from less demanding schools who struggled with the early actuarial exams. I appreciate these are small samples.
It varies by state, with the caveat that a bunch of states (when I was in college it was 37 states + DC but that may have subsequently changed) have agreed that once you’re certified in one you can transfer your certification to another.
For Ohio I had to pass a version of the inappropriately named “National Teachers Exam” that included Abstract Algebra. It was no joke… probably as hard as Couse 1 under that exam system.
I had to pass other sections of the exam that were absurdly (insultingly) easy too, but the one that Ohio required to get your grade 7-12 mathematics certification was difficult. I doubt I could pass it today. Maybe in a month if I’d prepped for it. I don’t remember much Abstract Algebra.
But other states require easier versions of the NTE… there were always a few students who couldn’t pass the Ohio version who would jump through some hoops to get their initial certification in whichever state had the most similar requirements to Ohio, but with an easier version of the NTE. I think there was an extra course or two they had to take plus they had to travel to that state for something… fingerprinting or a TB test or something… don’t quite recall. I passed the Ohio version so I didn’t jump through those hoops. 
I remember looking into the National Teachers Exam back when I was planning to teach at that level. The general exam was easy - on a par with the GRE. But the subject-specific ones for math and physics were insanely hard. Way way harder than any actuary test I ever took.
That’s definitely different than in Canada. Teachers need an undergrad degree, often a general arts degree. Then they need a bachelor of education which often consists of about 16 months, but half of that is in classroom. Not to be dismissive of teaching skills, but neither of those educational requirements are particularly intense.
I just completed a masters of math, teaching, targetted at Canadian math teachers (i was pretty much the only one in the program who wasn’t a teacher). I enjoyed it, but the material was nowhere near as rigourous as actuarial exams.
Yeah I think it varies a lot by state here. If you want to teach high school math in California it’s a pretty high bar. I think a lot of schools end up hiring people on an emergency basis and just let them stay. I think the actual qualified teachers are in short supply.
The teaching skills necessary to really help students at that level don’t have much to do with the content though. It’s more about classroom management and building community. That stuff is much harder than it sounds.
Eh: Groups, Rings, Fields, yada, yada yada,. something etched on a bridge,… and this is why we have numbers and operations.
That’s what I got out of it.
When I took my math content test for my teacher license, I was surrounded by Teach for America kids who spent most of the post-test time complaining about their placements. Then a couple of them started complaining about how hard they thought the content test was. 
The girl in front of me turned to me and was all “I don’t know, did you think it was hard?” I just gave her a puzzled look and said, " 
no?" And then she stopped talking to me (which was good for both of us).
Belongs in “advances by the opposite sex” thread.
Deal lost.
I was too busy being glad that I nailed the capture-recapture question that was on it to contemplate other nailings I could’ve pursued.
OK, now I’m curious…
What the heck is that??
Ah. Google explains.