Frusterated
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| Tue, 01-25-2005 - 12:27pm |
Hi I am new here. I have been lurking for quite awhile but haven't posted yet. My husband and I have quite a bit of debt mostly medical bills from having our last child and we want to get it taken care of. We have gotten quite a few ideas from you guys and the Dave Ramsey book. We had planned on paying off a lot of our bills with our tax return but it is going to be about 1,000 less than I thought mostly due to our income increase and not being able to claim the earned income credit this year. I recently graduated (last may) and am an RN now and my wages was just enough to push us over the limit. My husband on the other hand is in denial....I have done our taxes for the last 7 years and now all of a sudden because our tax return is smaller than expected, he doesn't think its right....He just keeps questioning it and questioning it.....I am about ready to take it to H&R block...lol...they will come back with the same exact numbers and then he will see that I was right. I even tried to warn him our tax return may not be as large as he wants it to be. But he never listens to me. I told him that since we aren't getting the earned income credit anymore we should put that extra money that he lets the government take each week into a savings account instead...and not rely so much on our tax return anymore as a way of saving money. But he won't listen to that either. So I told him last night that maybe we should go talk to someone who is more financial savvy and see what his opinion is. But putting $280 into a savings accout a month (which is the amount we are giving the government each month...extra) should surely give us a bigger savings than a tax return at the end of the year. Does anyone have a good interest calculator so that I can show him that putting that $280 into a savings acct (like INGdirect) will be better? Anyway, sorry its so long, but I am just frusterated with him. I am suprised that our tax return is smaller this year too, but maybe its time to just do something different to save money instead of rely on our tax return.
Thanks
Suzanne

Don't go to H&R Block. Go to IRS.gov and there is a listing of websites that will prepare and file your taxes for free. Turbotax and H&R Block are listed. Some of the sites have income requirements, some don't. There is a link from the IRS that will sort through all of the sites and tell you which ones you can use and which you can't.
Turbotax asks questions as you go along to make sure you have an accurate return. Maybe this will save you the prep fee and show your husband you are correct, then again, it could find something you missed and help you get a bigger refund.
As for finacial calculators, bankrate.com has all sort of calcualtors, as does quicken.com and I am sure ING would have one. I have quicken software and go back in very often and play with different numbers and interest rates, etc for things like debt reduction and savings.
HTH.
Kellie
Thanks for your reply. I guess I should have mentioned that I did calculate our taxes on turbotax....and somehow, its still not right I guess. Thanks so much.
Suzanne
Annie