Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Putting the "Fun" Back in "Refund"

Like most people, I really liked getting a big tax refund. Like, the $4000-ish we used to get. Yikes! I wouldn't save that money on my own, I knew.

But then something occurred to me. For what did I use my tax refund each year? Oh, to pay off my credit card. And hey, maybe if I had that money in paycheck every month, I wouldn't need to use my credit card. Huh. Lightbulb moment much? (And just to quickly mention how I wasn't earning any interest by using the Federal government to save my money, but I was PAYING my credit card big interest to use their money. What was THAT?)

So I changed my withholdings so that I wouldn't get a tax refund. Which was scary, honestly.

But then we had another baby. So despite all my planning, we did get a tax refund.

Which is good, considering the $1,500 mechanic bill we're facing. Sigh. But did I have to look for a mechanic that would take a credit card? Nope!

Oh, and something funny, just because it's looking kind of text-y around here.

(You can buy this t-shirt at http://store.theonion.com/t-shirts-c-11.html.)

4 comments:

RonaldJ said...

Thought you'd like to know that you can download a W-4 form in a PDF. Just go visit our wonderful friends at the IRS: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf

They also have a withholding calculator program at www.irs.gov to help avoid giving the gov't an interest free loan!

The kitten picture tells me you've had a rough day, huh?

huddtoo said...

Hmmm...I really should get our taxes done. We never do them right away, but we don't usually wait this long...just too busy!

Glad you can have the best of both worlds..in a sense...for this year! :)

Carrie said...

nice post gal!! We never seem to get refunds either!! But I'm so glad you had the cash to get your vehicle fixed!! We've had a lot of unexpected expenses lately too! WHich we have used the card, but paid it off each month so we make sure we have the cash for it!! GOod planning gal!

Anonymous said...

We are still waiting on our refund... hopefully soon... then it gets to pay off medical and legal bills. *sigh* I really want a pretty, red, steam washer and dryer and a dining set... but those will have to wait as we don't charge anything and paying off debt is more important.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin