Tax Time!

Me and turbo tax are bestie bros... not gonna lie. I love software that saves me time and finds me deductions.

I love just being able to roll over some information from one year to the next and with a toddler, making taxes easier is a win, win.

Between the state and the federal, we paid $126.98 to do our taxes because we need to add back in those business deductions now that I'm a Thirty-One Consultant ... and because I can't do state taxes by hand so i might as well pay to get both done.

We're actually getting a nice refund back (not that we try to give uncle sam our money on an interest free loan), but I'm always glad not to OWE money, that's for sure. Between our state and Federal taxes, were getting back $3,632.00 or just over $3,500 after you factor in the turbo tax fee.

Where is it going --- To Savings... mostly

Yup, we are boring practical people, but this chunk of cash is going into savings.

• $500 to our Medical savings account to bring it up to $1K
• $1,000 to our slush fund for larger purchases for the year (our fund is currently at zero and we won't get a profit share check until March and we all breath a little easier knowing we have some mad money set aside in case something pops up that we want to act on or if the computer breaks.).
• $1,500 to our car replacement fund because this is our savings focus!! Both our cars are over 100k and are the same age so we need to start saving now so we have the funds when they eventually die on us.

The last $500 will probably be divided and spent on some initial wants. We had originally thought about getting a new couch, but as luck would have it, we scored a "new to us" couch from a family in our ward that was getting new furniture-- complete with Queen sized fold up bed for when the in-laws come and visit. So we may get a different mattress for the couch bed since our bed mattress we bought from Amazon comes in a 5 inch thick version that's a bit firmer then what we have, but would be better than whats in the couch.

I won't lie. I'ts not a perfect couch, but we are very happy with it and the additional floor space we have too with a traditional couch and not an L couch. We might need to stitch up a fraying end or two, but we are really gratefully to have a couch with support that SCB can actually lie down on and you can't beat free. 

We also really want to clean our carpets, but I have already set aside $300 for this last year so now its just about finding the time. 

I've always loved the Spend / Save / Invest idea when it comes to windfalls and bonus money. Put some aside for spending, some for saving and some for investing (our investing is saving for a new car this go around since we are behind -- but eventually it would be Roth IRA contributions).