Whats everyone going to get with tax return money!?

[STARKILLER--1138]

Originally Posted by Rev

I like your plans

Thanks. Whatever I have left will be going to more cabinets for these bad boys.

[jono_0101]

Originally Posted by fatediesel

Yeah, with rates as low as they are and home prices at their current level it is a great time to buy. My friend and his fiance are looking at a house in Minnesota that's priced at $240,000 and the current owner paid $420,000 in 2004. I can't even imagine taking a loss like that in less than 5 years for a brand new house.

yeah, im not gonna be able to spend that much, but thats a hell of a deal, and with rates so low, definitely the best time to buy, i do still have a few months left on my lease though, so theres plenty of time to look

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by fatediesel

Obama wants another stimulus check, so it will likely happen within a couple months. I personally question the effectiveness of these checks. I know when I got the first one I didn't change my spending habits at all. This, along with the bailout, are putting a lot of debt out there that their gonna have trouble paying back.

Unless something has changed in the last few days or unless I was completely mistaken in the first place (either of which is possible), I was under the impression that Obama's plan wasn't a stimulus check like we got last year, but instead go cut each person's taxes by about $500 for the year (or $1,000 for couples) if they fall within a certain income level. So, instead of a one time check, it would be an ongoing additional amount of money that you'd have in your paycheck (since less taxes are being taken out) over the course of the year. But maybe I'm just entirely wrong on that.



At any rate, assuming that our tax return is in the ball park of where it's been the past few years, I imagine that my wife and I will be getting back somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,500. It could end up being more or less depending on where we fall, I got a big promotion that caused my salary to go way up back in May of this past year, which could either help or hurt the amount we get back (though I think we'll still get a good amount back, since a big chunk of it is based on the interest from our mortgage).

I don't have any big plans for it. Most of it is going to go into savings (it's possible that my wife and I may take a trip sometime in the fall). Some of it will go towards paying off a debt, and I may use some to get an HDMI switch for our HDTV, but aside from that, it's all about savings.


Even with my raise, we didn't save up nearly as much money last year as we should have, largely due to several unusual expenses (most of which were unpleasant and unexpected)...

With last year's tax return, we spent just over $1,000 to get my wife's engagement ring redone to match up better with her wedding ring.

Then around April/May, I ended up putting somethng like $600 or $700 into my car for new rotors and some other maintanence. Then a buddy of mine got married in May, and we had to take a road trip there... between car rental (to not put the wear on my car), hotel, gift, food for the weekend, and gas at over $4 per gallon, we spent a few hundred bucks there.

Then mid summer our dishwasher died and had to be replaced... that was roughly another $500.

Then my wife's car went in for an oil change and check up. A couple of the tires were worn past the point where they should be, so we had to get a couple of tires, and her front brake pads needed to be replaced, and a few other things, so there was another $600+

Then, back in August, I took my car in for it's next oil change, and I found out that the rear springs were going bad (one of them was actually cutting into one of my tires, thankfully it was just a little surface damage and didn't require the tire to be replaced). But the rear springs and struts needed to be replaced, and it was recommended that the front struts get replaced due to the age and mileage of the car, so I had those done at the same time. Plus I needed a new tensioner pulley (which I already knew about that going into it, a co-worker of mine helped me identify that one), and when all was said and done, that ended up being like $1600.

Then going into the fall, the barrage of cash spending begins. October is my wife's birthday, November is our Anniversary, December is my sister's birthday, my dad's birthday, and Christmas. Plus, the fall though Christmas is just bad with BD and video game releases coming out left and right.




I actually was panicing about needing further car repair work recently because my car started making this weird squeeking sound when I was driving, and I figurd that my tax return would end up going towards that. Luckily, the parts were all fine and it just needed some grease, so that + an oil change only ended up being $38 (good news, for once!).

So, my goal right now is to just put as much in the bank as possible. We do have some decent money in there now, but we really should be adding to it. *Knock on wood*, my wife and I are in pretty good positions right now. The company I am working for is actually still doing rather well even with the recession, and she works for the local public library (gets paid pretty decent and has good benefits), and there doesn't seem to be any danger of her losing her job currently. But, I do want to tread cautiously.

I only have 2 payments left on my car (which I may just call up the lending bank and see what the total would be to just pay it all off in the next week or so), so that's a couple hundred per month we won't have to shell out anymore. And, we had to borrow some money from my parents back in early 2007 when we ended up in a bit of a financial bind and had to borrow some money (and this was right after we bought our HDTV with 2 years of no interest financing, which I actually wouldn't have purchased if I knew this was going to happen... though we finished paying off the TV a few months ago). We took a big chunk out of our savings at the time, but didn't want to drain our accounts too much, so my mom and step-dad lent us some money, and came up with a 4-year repayment plan. Well, we've been doubling up on the payments and still have been saving at the end of the month in most cases (though, obviously last year we didn't save as much as we would have liked due to those other issues), so we are close to the finish line on that. The last payment will be in April based on our current doubling up of payments, but if we file our taxes and get our return sooner, then I'm just going to write one big check for the rest that we owe.


After that, the only debt that we have to speak of is our mortgage and my wife's car payment (I forget how much longer we have before her car is payed off... it will either be paid off later this year or sometime next year). So, we'll be in a good position to really put extra money away, which is my main goal right now.

I would love to get an even nicer TV, but what we have is good enough for now, and while our jobs seem safe, I don't want to assume anything right now, so saving is the big goal.