Taxes are Done

…and the refund should be hitting our checking account sometime in the next two weeks or so.

You read that right, the refund! We are getting back just over $4000 between our state and federal refunds.

This is the biggest refund I think we’ve ever gotten, ever.

Generally, we end up with a small refund overall. We usually get a refund from the state but end up having to pay federal taxes. Our net outcome is usually in the few hundred dollars in our favor.

Due to buying and selling a house this year our refund was much larger than normal. We actually got a refund from the federal government, albeit a small one, and one from the state.

I’m so excited! $4000 was far beyond my wildest dreams!

In my day dreams the other day, where I wrote about taxes, I said half on any refund would go towards debt and the other half would go towards savings. I was dreaming about $2000… total; this was really dreaming as usually we only get a $700 refund. I was hoping we would get enough to send $1000 to debt and $1000 to savings. I can’t believe we actually got twice that!

I can’t wait to get that money in my bank account so I can send it to work for me!

We tend to fall into the “don’t give the government an interest free loan” category, however, buying and selling houses this past year made for crazy taxes for us this year! In one sense, I’m annoyed by how big our refund is because that is money we could have used throughout the year. In another sense, I appreciate the “windfall” I am now getting that I can put to work. Had I received that money monthly, in the forms of nickel and dimes, I surely would have found a way to waste it.

If, as I plan, I send $2000 to our credit card debt, that will go a long way towards my needed $750 a month in payments. In fact, it will bring what I need to pay monthly, for the next 8 months, down to $563 per month. Paying $563 per month, before interest, will bring our credit card balance down below $10000 by the end of the year.

This refund is a gift and I hope to get several more “gifts” over the course of the year: overtime, raises, extra pay/hours, unexpected monies, etc. I’m hoping that any of these will be able to go straight towards killing our debt once and for all.