@Anonymous wrote:Tax what season???
Kidding! Although I never loan the government even one dime for an entire year so my tax refund is usually -$1000 or so.
Keep working on that utilization, remember overall utilization of 30% doesn't mean much if any ONE card has utilization over 48.9%! So get them all down below 48.9% first, and THEN focus on overall utilization.
This. We're usually around a $700ish refund or so. I'm debating using the refund to help fund the $100 CD ladder or put the money towards the personal loan.
Another good tip, you can pay your taxes quarterly to make sure you are contributing just the right amount. I know it's unpopular but why lend the government money interest free all year when you could technically borrow it interest free all year? That gets into having self-discipline which is super hard for me but I am that cheap now 
Thanks FICO (jk).
@Anonymous wrote:Wow $700 refund would drive me nuts at the money lost. That's $58 a month in free loans to the government!
If you raised your paycheck by lowering your deductions to hit that $58/month earlier versus taking out $700 at the end of the year, you'd end up with this comparison:
- @$58/month saved for 1 year @ 7%, then just riding out a year = $771.88 (at the end of year 2)
- @$700 saved from end of 1 year @ 7% = $750.60 (at the end of year 2)
So that's a growth rate of almost 42% more by NOT giving that money to the IRS free for a year. Pretty stunning difference. Even in a simple 1.3% high interest savings account the difference is pretty significant. I'd have to run a forecast on what happens over 10 years but I assume it'd be a major difference.
Tax refunds annoy me a lot. It's so much better to pay a little bit every year than to loan it for free to people not grateful for it.
FYI - Before you judge: We had our first kid first quarter 2016. The DH did NOT adjust his tax withholding (he forgot, but I didn't). Trust me, I've been working on getting just the right deductions. But you add in the kid, the DHs earnings, money from a 401K that has to come out (was his mother's, who is deceased), credit for interest on student loans and it's been hard to figure out just the right deductions so we don't OWE. I'm hoping I've got it right this year. I hate getting a big refund, because I'd rather have that money all year and not let the government use it. The $700 is what we got back last year, I'm hoping it'll be much less.
@Anonymous wrote:I never judge others for tax refunds, it would just annoy me, lol. I've also screwed up in the wrong direction and one year got a shocker of $8000 due. Neither me, my savings plan nor the IRS was happy about that one. Even my tax accountant was shocked.
When kids come along it screws everything up for parents financially because there are so many gotchas. None of the financial planning apps do a good job there. I've been harping on one of my Facebook groups to folks planning kids to start the day the stick turns blue, not 9 months later, lol. Still, people always send me horror stories about the financial situations going upside down right away. I don't have kids (yet) so I'm not one to suggest parenting advice, but when it comes to financially planning for it, there's millions to be made if someone would make a solid family financial planning app that one can start using the minute the pregnancy is confirmed!
Plus managing IRS stuff is a headache because they're not known to give warnings to changes. The upcoming "tax bill" debates are completely off my radar -- I'll deal with reality when reality is in play.
This, so much! And it does annoy me! An app would be excellent but it'd been really complicated on the back end. So much of childcare & expenses associated with said child really vary by region and zip code.