Sunday, August 1, 2010

WOO!

Yes. It has been ages since I have posted anything. But things have been busy, and I have been lazy. But I had to take 30 seconds to slam out a quick post to say...

I JUST MAILED MY LAST PAYMENT FOR MY 2008 FEDERAL TAXES!!!

Thank god that is done! It has been way too long. And it will be nice to have that extra $250/month as a cushion.

So, yeah. WOO!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Surprise money! YAY!!!!

I just got a letter in the mail from the IRS. I assumed that they were telling me that they credited my $150 refund to my 2008 tax balance. I was partly right.

Turns out, I missed a credit on my 1040. So, not only did they credit the $150 refund that I had calculated, they also credited an additional $400 to the 2008 balance! So that is an extra $400, which takes another 2 months off how long it will take me to pay back. So, I now have a $1095 balance, which I can get paid off in only four more payments. Holy crap! It feels good to see the end.

Of course the extra money that I would have for not making tax payments is going to go elsewhere and not to fun, frivolous stuff. But it still feels good.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Reimbursement!!

WOO!

I just got an email from BofA. My reimbursement of my travel expenses from my conference trip at the end of March has posted! That is $875.79!! Excellent. Of course, I have to remember that this is not extra money; it needs to go to pay the credit cards that financed the conference trip. Well, the rental car ($250) was on my debit card, so I can hang on to that. ;)

My plan right now is to transfer the part that I want to use to pay the credit card into my savings account, so I can get some interest on it. And then just pay my balance off on Bill Day.

So, yeah. It is being a good day.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Dwindling Debt

So, a bit of background info before getting into this post. I used to have a lot more credit card debt than I do now -- a LOT more. One of my credit cards that had a crazy high balance ($5000+ I think) kept going over the limit, which just made matters worse. Even when I wasnt using the damn card, interest charges and fees kept me from getting caught up on it. So, they offered me a deal. They closed my account and dropped the interest rate to 0% in exchange for automatically withdrawing payments from my checking account every month for 5 years. Not too bad, since I couldnt use that card anyway.

Anyway, I just got off the phone with the guy from the credit card company. Each year, I have to call and set up a years worth of payments. At the end of things, he told me that I had 10 payments of $131 and an 11th payment of $90.50 and that with the payment on March 5, 2011, the balance would be paid in full.

WOO HOO!

Granted, this is only one account among several. But it is a great step in the right direction. Plus, that $131/month can now go to paying more on another account. And that will help get other debt to go away faster. So, the light at the end of the tunnel is visible. It isnt bright or very close, but it is definitely there.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

2009 Taxes

Holy SHIT! I log in to Blogger and see that the last time that I posted anything was Feb 1! Well, I am a loser.

Anyway, this is (for once) a good post. I had been putting off doing my 2009 taxes for a long time. I knew that it was not going to be as bad as in the past, because taxes were withheld for the full year for the first time since being at this job. But still, I was gun shy.

Well, tonight, I bit the bullet and did my taxes. And -- drumroll please -- I actually do NOT owe any taxes to anyone!! That frakking god!

I am not getting massive refunds, but not owing is such a wonderful feeling. I will be getting $118 back from the state and $150.20 from Federal. The mild downside to this is that I do still owe 2008 taxes (UGH). So, my Federal refund is going to pay for that directly, so I wont actually see any of that money. But every little bit helps in paying off those pesky 2008 taxes.

So, hells yeah for not owing more taxes!!

Monday, February 1, 2010

2009 Goals

Wow. Back-to-back posts. Dont have a stroke.

After posting that last entry, I was reading through it, and the list of my goals caught my eye. Being 2010 now, I think that it would be appropriate to comment on how things went, and of course, judge myself for failing to get things done...

Short Term Goals: Jan 1, 2010
- Increase savings account to $1,500. FAIL (6.5%). OUCH! There is only $97.29 in my savings account! Well, that sucks. I really need to get back to work on that savings account.
- Start & Get Vet/Emergency Savings to $400. FAIL (63%). I have $251.30 in the Vet savings account. It is not $400, but there is money there. But still, I feel sad that the cats have more money in their account than I have in mine.
- Pay down credit card debt to $6,000 (pay $4,400). FAIL (93%) I did not quite get the credit card debt down to $6000, but now the total is only $6478.79. And I did pay a total of $4081.23, which is better than I thought it would be going into this post.
- Pay down CitiLoan by $2,700. WIN (115%). WOO! This one I did good, but I also think I was setting the goal too low, as $2700 is paying the minimum each month.
- Pay off Capital One ($409.96). WIN (100%). Although, technically I did not pay it off by Jan 1. It was paid off by Feb 1, which is good enough for me.

Mid Term Goals: Apr 15, 2010
- Pay All Federal 2008 Taxes ($3,905). FAIL (51%). Federal taxes are not paid off yet. But I have taken a nice sized chunk of out them. But it is not quite April 15 yet. Here is hoping that I can really get this done. Although, I did manage to pay $2000 to the IRS between August 2009 and February 2010. Maybe at this rate, I will get this done by the summer.
- Pay All State 2008 Taxes ($1,319). WIN (100%) I mailed my last state tax payment in October 2009. WOO!

Okay, so actually looking at things in better detail (which forced me out of bed to the other computer where the Quicken info is), I am not as bad off as I thought I was. I am nowhere near where I want/need to be, but I have accomplished some of my goals and made some nice progress on others. Really, my biggest FAIL is the savings account. And I need to remember not to use the credit card that I can use. Simply keep paying on it. That is hard, but I should be able to do it.

But now, I am off to bed.