99k by 2011

Well, it’s official. I’m worried about a possible tax bill. I think it might be as much as 5k, but I really am not sure. I used Jesse’s tax spreadsheet that comes as a “bonus” with YNAB Pro, and I know that it is more of a guideline then anything else, and I did notice there’s nowhere to enter in one’s child care expenses, so that might help things along to lessen a possible bill, but as it is, it’s better to be well prepared for the worst then count on it not being bad.

So, that changes things with the upcoming bonus my husband will be receiving in March. We are going still going to take 1k and blow it (wheee!) But the rest, we will be sticking in savings until we know what’s up with the taxes.

I was also planning on trying to start putting a paycheck each month from “supplemental” to “primary” (part of the YNAB functionality to get you living on last month’s income,) but have changed my mind in that regard as well. Instead, I will just sock money away into a “buffer” category, which is kind of the same thing, but with the benefit of me being able to see the balance in that category and know that it’s there for possible tax bill use as well. If we do have a bill, we’ll probably fund one our IRAs to lessen it’s affect as well, even though that will mean even more money out of pocket. I would rather have more money out of pocket (as long as we have it) and give less to the government, you know what I mean?!

So basically, the plan is to wait and see. We are going to go to a CPA this year also. I think our finances are getting complicated enough to warrant the professional help and save us the headache of slogging through turbo tax. Of course, I still need to get all the info he will need, so there will still be some slogging and math to do. (day care costs minus the cost of kindergarten minus theFSA costs, etc.).

So.. I guess I’m going to be opening a high interest savings account in preparation of stashing bonus money away. I will be sad not to see a huge chunk knocked out of the debt on my spreadsheet.. but hopefully it is just delayed.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 1:24 pm and is filed under journey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.