The Maries County Bank & Branches Our community…our future. Member FDIC Teen Savers Newsletter Member FDIC 1st Quarter 2014 How to Decode Your Paycheck. It’s a great feeling to get that ﬁrst paycheck! It’s important to read your paycheck stub and look for any errors. More employers are using direct deposit, sending your pay directly to your bank account. You then get an Earnings Statement that looks similar to the sample below. In the case of direct deposit, the bottom will not be an actual check but will show what was deposited into your account. Required deductions These required deductions are taken out of your Gross Pay automatically. Here, John R. Doe is not earning enough to pay federal or state income tax. When your earnings exceed $7,600 in a year, you will begin to pay federal income tax. All workers pay into Social Security and Medicare. Both programs are funded by FICA, a payroll tax. FICA stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax. Other deductions are voluntary. These can include premiums for health insurance and your contributions to a retirement account. Welcome to the world of work. As you turn 18, how you handle your money can have an impact on looking for a job in the career ﬁeld you desire. Important Key Words On Your Paystub Net Pay: the amount of your income or paycheck after any deductions, like taxes or insurance payments, are subtracted. This is your take-home pay. Gross Pay: the entire amount of your income or paycheck before any deductions have been subtracted. Income Tax: money that wage earners pay the government to run the country. The amount of the tax depends on how much you earn. Inside this Issue: Page 1: How to Decode Your Paycheck Page 2: Money Facts Page 3: Sukoku Puzzle Page 4: Contest winners Article & Photo adapted from: www.themint.org Fascinating Facts about Money that You may not know. Money — it’s something we all use every day, but rarely think about, except to lament that we don’t have enough of it. The U.S. has been making money since 1792. That ﬁrst money was in the form of coins. These early coins were made of precious metals and had actual value. It wasn’t until 1862 during the Civil War that the Department of Treasury produced paper money, which isn’t actually paper; it’s cotton.It was created to make up for the coin shortage. Since those early coins contained valuable metals, Americans began hoarding them as a hedge against the ﬂuctuations in money created by the war. Coins have ridges to protect against counterfeiting. Most of us use coins to purchase items from vending machines, or we throw them in a bank to save for a rainy day, but coins have a fascinating history. Did you ever wonder why the quarter has those ridges on the edge? They were created to prevent counterfeiting. Yes, even back in those gentler times of Colonial America there were improvising criminals trying to counterfeit money. These counterfeiters would shave the edges off of coins because they were made of silver and gold. A ten dollar gold piece was made with ten dollars worth of gold. To make a little extra money, people would shave the edges of the coins and collect the metal. If done well enough, the smaller coins would not be noticed by merchants and they in effect would get less than ten dollars in gold for a purchase. This gave the counterfeiter extra gold or silver to make into more coins. Today, the ridges remain as a form of “braille” for the seeing impaired. There are 119 grooves on the edge of a quarter. A dollar bill only lasts 18 months before it wears out. The dollar bill is the most circulated bill in the U.S. One-dollar bills account for 48% of the paper bills printed by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. A dollar bill usually makes it through around 18 months of use before it wears out. If you take the time to look at the dollar bill you will notice a few things. It’s easy to notice the “all seeing eye” over the pyramid, the eagle with 13 arrows in its talons and the Latin phrase E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, One). There are a few things, however, you might have missed, such as other phrases on the bill: Annuit Coeptis - “God (or He/Providence) has favored our undertakings” Novus ordo seclorum - “New Order of the Ages” In God We Trust - This phrase actually ﬁrst appeared on U.S. money between 1864 - 1873 on a two-cent coin. It reappeared in 1955 and has been on all U.S. money since 1963 In 2010, the U.S. Mint produced roughly 1,856,000,000 one dollar bills. If you have one-million of them, they would weigh, 2,040.8 pounds. Ask for 20s instead, as one million of them would only weigh 20.4 pounds. As well, you can make change for a one-dollar bill 293 ways. Living Presidents are banned from having their faces on currency. Pennies, you either love them or hate them. They were the ﬁrst denomination of coins struck in the U.S. and they’ve been around a long time. They’ve been around since 1793 when they were 100% copper. President Lincoln made his appearance on the penny in 1909. Modern pennies are made of a bit of copper with zinc and nickel. There were 4,938.54 million pennies produced in 2011. The current design of the penny still features President Lincoln on the front, but the reverse has gone through several revisions. It now shows a Union shield with 13 vertical stripes, a single horizontal bar across the top which represents the Union, and “E Pluribus Unum.” There have been recurring attempts to stop production of the penny, but for now, it is still being produced. Dead Presidents By legislation created during the Revolutionary years of the U.S., no living person can be featured on a coin. It was to ensure that the U.S. would not appear like a monarchy, as living kings during the era were cast onto their country’s coinage. There has been one exception to this rule, President Calvin Coolidge. His image was struck on a commemorative coin that celebrated the Sesquicentennial of American Independence. It was minted in 1926. Adapted from: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-fascinating-facts-about-money-2013-7?op=1 Sudoku Puzzle Instructions 1. Look at the size of your diagram. Each row, column and square on your diagram must have each number once but no more. For example, in a diagram measuring 9 by 9, each row, column and square must have the digits 1 through 9 once without duplication of any number. 2. Analyze the location of squares that already are ﬁlled in. If a box has a 5 and 9, you know that the box needs the seven other digits to be complete. Look at the diagram in terms of three sections, the top, middle and bottom boxes in rows. 3. Use a pencil to ﬁll in possible numbers so you can erase them if you’re wrong. It’s easier to write “5 or 6” in a box than to remember that the number in that box needs to be one or the other. Use a pen to ﬁnalize your answer if you know a number is correct. 4. Continue ﬁlling in boxes until each row, column and box has all digits once and only once. Check your work along the way to verify you don’t have duplicated numbers. www.puzzles.about.com P.O. Box 203 Vienna, MO 65582 Teen Savers Drawing Winners! Congratulations to: Shad d Veasm an T had Rehm er t Joyce Stew ar t Connor D illon B l ake Jones as the lucky Teen Savers Drawing winners for the last drawing of 2013! Each time you make a deposit into your Teen Savers account, have your teller enter your name for the next drawing held on March 16th, 2014. Remember - the more deposits you make the more chances you have to win a $10 MCB gift card!