This is the first time I've ever been able to file this early! Part of dh's pay is taxed at bonus rate so we usually get a decent refund (I know someone will tell me we can get around this but his company only gives the option for MORE tax to be withheld lol) Anyway, after what we are allotting for extra payments, we are trying to decide what we need to buy. I want to buy a new fridge, so I can store more food and cut down on trips to the store. Ours is very small. We have a teen son and almost teen dd along with a four and six yr old so we go through so much food! Dh hasn't committed to the fridge idea yet though...

I think we may get a pressure cooker also, does anyone have one and like it? My Mom has me scared of them though, so good reviews would ecourage me :p
Anne

I can't wait, but have to until Feb 1st because I am working on a grad school app that I decided on last minute! But I'm ready to go Feb 1st and should have everything filed within that first week of the month. Those are the benefits of filing 2003 in October, LOL, you still remember all your deductions ;). I orgainzed most of 2004 at the same time.

My plans are simply to pay off the atrocious credit card bill I've recently rung up due to a string of unexpected expenses, and to replace our dishwasher, which is leaking and unable to be repaired (stupid cheap plastic parts). If there is anything left over after that, it will be going toward moving costs.

Don't be afraid of a pressure cooker. the new ones are made so that they can't blow up and are great for fast meals. I am hoping to get a babylock with my tax return. fingers crossed. Sarah

We are going to get a new bike and a good bike trailer with our tax refund. We are going car-free and DH is bike commuting.

DH bounced through this year on the verry merry "study for the bar 2004" tour.

I think we will renew our musuem membership and toss the rest at debt.

I'm just praying we don't have to pay! If we do get any back (very unlikely) it will probably be very little (like $25).

I miss the days of almost $4000 tax refunds - but I like the paycheck of now better! lol

We are on the bonus system too. We balance it better by claiming 12 (13?) on dh's reg. small paychecks...and then we have the option for 20% or 25% or 30% or 35% for the bonus....we do 20%. It balances well. You can also legally file an excuse form for lowered taxes off the bonus, or upping your deductions during the year. The IRS offers a form. They sent one to dh's co-worker last year after his refund was over $5000 for the 3rd year. Apparently they don't "like" giving big refunds too often...?!

We too are like Allison and much prefer to have our money during the year to pay off interest, cc, etc. Saves *us* money, or allows interest to build for us.

I am expecting a tiny bit back...maybe $150? If so, I think we will use it for a night away. To the snow? Something like that....(o:


Oh, and the fridge?? GO FOR IT!!!! I have 3 kids, 2 adults and got tired of our fridge. Come to find out it was like 15 cu. one. Small. So we saw an awesome sale and got a 21 cu. one. I LOVE it. We went freezer on top, as the side ones or freezer bottom ones had too much freezer space. We have a chest freezer and were basically looking for more fridge space. We save money now on groceries, as we can stock up on thr larger, cheaper sizes. Plus we stock up and prevent last minute runs to the store...that end in $100 trips. Ugh....

If we get anything back we'll be paying off the rest of the debt and saving up for a camper I hope!

DH has "estimated" ours so far so we know about what we're getting. I think we'll probably buy a freezer and maybe a king sized bed (the 4 of us in the full sized bed is just NOT working...DH, Lauren, me and "The belly") I hope to get a zoo membership and then use anything that's left to pay toward our car payment.

j

We filed ours last week and are getting back $4960. lol... that is the gov's 'thank you' for us not being on Welfare. lol... We get it Feb 11th, and I am getting a Serger of my own, a coverstitch machine and Don is getting a gun. The rest (which should be just over $2.5k) will go into savings for the move along with the $1.5K we have in there it should be a little left even after the move and wouldn't that be nice? :)

We paid our last CC payment of $19 today!!!!!!! DONE DONE DONE! YAY! That is $158 a month taken off our budget! (That is so exciting! We paid that for two 1/4 years!)

Then we are moving and getting things for the new house with that money. I am planning on getting a few things for the kitchen in the new house, because I have had a HUGE pantry closet in this house and I am very proud of it... and I want to be able to still have that feeling in the new house... so that will be a priority for me. Besides that we most likely have everything we need (and more) for the new house, and I don't think it should cost much to set things up. Which is cool.

Love Val

Almost done with ours. I don't have a copy of last years so I have to print out a form to sign and send in instead of doint the electronic signature. Stinks, but shouldn't add to much time onto the wait.

We had zero federal tax taken out from our checks this year so I was kind of nervous. Turned out that we are getting $3800 so I'm thrilled (was $4400 until I realized I was missing a w-2 :( ). But they didn't take enough out for state tax and we now owe them $54. Not a lot but we've never had to pay in before!

We had a lot of things we needed to do with the money. Hard to narrow it down. Dh wanted to go to his brothers graduation (all the way across the country), but decided we could not go.

We decided to put $2200 towards medical bills that are in collections. This will leave us with only two debts, my student loans and a car payment (not that we currently own - repossed 6 years ago and just now are getting it paid). We will pay $400 to get my student loan current. Dh needs a new (used) truck. We are not sure how much we will need to spend but will use $1000 of the tax return as a down payment. That should leave $200. Dh needs $2000 worth of dental work done so we are going to try to put the $200 in savings for this. Not much but it's a small dent at least!

We will be filing ours by Friday. We plan to put $1200 into savings for our June property taxes, $1,000 into savings for any unexpected things that come up (urgent/emergency type things) and the remainder will start that snowball rolling to get *all* of our debt paid off. We have a 5.5 year plan and this even includes paying our mortgage off. (If we decide not to pay our mortgage off our debt repayment plan will be less than 2 years).

THis is the first year we won't have any to spend - the problem is, we've already spent it! :rolleyes: We put a computer and some other stuff on our card (we never carry cc debt) so we'll be putting that money to pay off the card.

It will all go to pay off 1/4 of our debt. Being a responsible adult is no fun sometimes isn't it?

Sigh... it's worse than I thought. We just estimated, but we owe over $200. Not a ton, but still - I want a refund!!! OF course I'll take the oweing over the refund since it meant that dh made over $20,000 more this year than last. But let me tell ya - self employment tax sucks!

We will be adjusting his deductions though! Right now we don't get much taken out, but I prefer not having to owe. So we'll adjust it by 1 dependent.

Originally posted by amelia
It will all go to pay off 1/4 of our debt. Being a responsible adult is no fun sometimes isn't it?


I'm totally right there with you! Our federal will go 100% to cc debt or maybe our car loan. Or maybe 50/50. We're debating. I want to pay off the car and snowball into the cc. DH feels the car is a secured debt and the cc is unsecured and as such we should pay the unsecured first. He has a point....

but darn it. we could pay off that darn car by july if we used the fed refund.

Last year all of ours went into buying our house and the year before that we paid off dh's car. Honestly I'm having trouble spending it....I had alot of things that I wanted but for some reason we haven't bought much. We paid half of ours toward a cc, and bought dh practically a whole new wardrobe for work, 4 pants, a belt, 9 long sleeve nice shirts, 3 short sleeves, hankies, socks and a nice Dockers coat (all for less than $150...love Kohls clearance! Steinmart too!) He seldom buys clothes and felt guilty buying stuff. The coat would have been $100 at full price!

Anyway, I'm still shopping for a fridge, I'm not sure I can shell out that much money at one time, it scares me and I have trouble deciding :confused:
Anne

it's here!!!! My tax refund that is.

I just did billpay on our checking act and mailed 1/2 to the car loan and 1/2 to the cc. wheeeeee!!

I haven't filed yet, we are still getting in a couple of forms due to a refinance.

We never do anything fun with our refund. It goes right back to pay local real estate taxes.