October 2010 Weddings
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
F/U Taxes
So I did our taxes with TuboTax last night, so easy! We are getting about $2K more than I was expecting. We filed married joint, I didn't even try putting it all in separate, I was tired and since we were already getting more than I expected I just went with it.
So glad to have that all done! Now, show me the $$$!!
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Re: F/U Taxes
We are getting back a big refund (still waiting on a small form to file though)...which really means that we should update our withholdings. I believe from MM board that if you owe less than $1K or get back less than $1K, then you have the ideal witholdings chosen.
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We got $500 back from state and like $3200 back from federal.
I am taking from Hannah's post that maybe we should change our with-holdings on our W2's? I know that we both claim 0. I am no financial expert so any advice would be wonderful!
We filed married, joint (TurboTax said this was the better choice), and are getting close to $4K back from feds, and about $2K from state. This is great, as we're trying to save for a down-payment on a house, which will be somewhere between $140-180K. (stupid CA real estate - mind boggling how much money that is!)
Every bit helps, and it's easier to stash the bigger amounts away than a little bit here and there (which we also do). Keeps us from being tempted to spend it...
That's fantastic!!
But we're doing the same thing w/our refund, $4K fed and just $130 state.
Ashlee-I'm not sure on the witholdings thing. I need to look into it more. I'm thinking we may have DH increase withholdings to 1 and I'll stay w/0 since I make more.
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Thanks! I am very excited about it. I messed up with credit cards and had a lot of student loans when I was in my late teens, and a couple years ago I decided to take care of it all. I spent about 9 months not eating out at all, not going out with friends, basically not doing anything except paying over $2000 a month in debt bills, and then finally I became 100% debt free. So it really upset me when we had to borrow money from my Dad and his grandmom when I lost my job, but like I said, we'll be able to get that all paid off within a few weeks, and then things will be back to normal and I can really start saving again. Man, I wish I could just slap 19 year old Xan in the back of the head lol.
Have you thought about having a separate bank account for your savings (I have mine at a completely separate bank) and having a set amount auto drafted each month? For example, if you currently are paid bi-weekly your $4K refund would be $153 every paycheck. Let's say you reduce your witholdings by $125 per paycheck to play it safe, put it in a money market at 5% interest and you have 3,398.66 at the end of the year, plus a $728 tax refund (assuming everything stays the same this year as last). It's not much when you look at just one year, but since it compounds every bit that you put into savings will result in even greater growth.
The way I am with money, if I have it then I spend it, but I don't even consider my savings account as money that I have, since it is a completely separate bank (I don't even keep that debit card or checks in my purse). That helps a lot when it comes to savings.
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Erin - we do use separate banks for different things - each of us has our personal savings at a separate bank (and for mine, it deposits to a checking account with auto transfer of a specified amount to savings every 2 weeks); the remainder of our paychecks are direct deposited to join, and we are pretty good about transferring to savings ($12K since the wedding).
Also, we have quite a bit of stock/stock options that we're exercising for a house (and have been paying down our mortgage on the condo), which makes taxes a bit complicated. I think after we stabilize a bit (i.e.: not looking at selling a ton of stuff) we'll *definitely* be adjusting our withholding levels to reduce our refund (DH would like to owe $0-500, as opposed to getting a refund). Thanks