Taxes Done!

This morning, for the first time in my life, I paid someone to do our taxes. It took around 1.5 hours and cost $190. I wouldn't say it's the best money I ever spent, but it's pretty high up there. I like not worrying about if I made a mistake in my interpretation and avoiding my husband freaking out. Though in the end she said I seemed really on top of things- which made me smile.

2009 was less complicated than 2008, but we still had a lot going on. 2 W-2's, 1 1099, bank interest, student loan and mortgage interest, donations, car purchase deduction (federal) and credit (state) & a home energy credit (door replacement).

I ran our taxes a few different times at home in February. One program had us getting a little more and one had us getting a little less than where we ended up. Though on the one where we had more I definitely didn't get enough guidance from the program I was using about the property loss not covered by our insurance and would have claimed something illegally.

In the end we're getting back just over $7,000. The state car credit was a huge ($3,110) part of that. The rest is due to unexpected deductions/stimulus stuff and my husband being squeamish about withholding. One year when he was single and working in the mortgage industry (with only 401(k) as tax shelter) he ended up owing a lot of money. Ever since he's wanted to claim 0. Logical thinks like being married and owning a house and having (my) student loan debt don't seem to compute. I'm trying to get us to both claim 1 for the rest of the year to avoid another huge return.

Approx $3,400 of the return will go to the Prius. My thought is if we get the money for buying the car it should help pay for the car. I'm pretty sure one of us, or maybe the dealer, used the state credit when discussing price. He wants to figure out which of us overpaid by how much (after the credits/deductions things like the car) and give 20% of that back to each of us, but that seems like a lot of math and brain cells. After the $3400 I think the remainder should be split in thirds and send to the baby fund, medical savings, and efund.

Baby fund is new and somewhat amorphous, but at least helping to buy baby furniture/stuff that we'll need after the baby shower. Medical savings is also new, but this year will be a pretty expensive medical year. Copays on OB visits are going to run around $350. Delivery will either be $500 or $1,000 depending on if a perk from a year ago still exists. So best case we're looking at $850 until the baby gets here and assuming absolutely nothing is out of the ordinary.

We have around 2 weeks (if not more) for the money to actually show up so I'm not going to stress about it right now. But it feels good to be done for the year.