First I had to find the swing before I could make the attempt to get back into the swing of things. I pulled my CU statement off the internet today and balanced my checkbook for the month of December, so that's a positive step in the pay attention to my finances category!

Tomorrow's big step will be sitting down with the bill box and paying bills. Okay, more than that because I've been paying bills all along, but getting that aspect of my life organized. I'm going to be getting this nifty organizer thing from Lillian Vernon for my birthday in February. It's a box that has slots for every day of the month that you organize your bills into and then a couple little drawers for miscellaneous bill paying items like envelopes or stamps or whatnot. Always have a hard time keeping track of my whatnots, after all! But it should come in quite handy.

I'm working on my 2008 Budget Spreadsheet, too. Now I know that medical has not gone up for the first year in forever and that car insurance has actually gone down ('bout time, DH hasn't had an accident since '94 and I've not had one since '88 when I was 18 and that was only a parallel parking mishap!), and they've finally gotten the clue we're safe drivers! Security system monitoring has gone up by a buck a month.

Lots of little things. Property taxes should go down a bit this year as a levy came off.

Tomorrow I'll be making a trip to Costco and getting gas. Don't think I'll buy anything else there, except produce if it looks good. I've got plenty of canned goods and meat in the freezer. Well, maybe eggs, milk, and cheese. And dishwasher tablets. I think I'll make a list before I go. Since things seem to be magically popping into my head at the moment.

Just wanted to say thanks again for the warm welcome back. It was lovely.

And this is just how badly I'm not thinking. I paid my property taxes today, well, techinically yesterday since it's after midnight. Pretty big thing to forget about, isn't it? Well, at least I didn't forget to pay it. Now that really would have been bad.

So $335.88 out the door for half year taxes. Yes, those are low. We're not a city out here. More like a blink and you missed it, with the accompanying services (few, mostly volunteer), and most of it goes to the schools anyway, which are good.

I also added 2 handfuls of change and $7 in ones to the coin jar. Didn't count the change. Still too apathetic at the moment, but I'm trying, anyway.

Well, obviously. Everyone else does, too, I'm sure. DH found out why they took so much out of his bonus check this year. Apparently our wonderful IRS branch of our government has a new tax law in effect. (If you didn't recognize it, that last sentence was dripping with sarcasm). Bonuses are now considered income and are taxed at the higher 25% rate as well.

But you know what really sucks? Reimbursements are taxable this year. Reimbursements? How the heck can they consider the company giving you your own money back as taxable income!?! And at the higher 25% also. I mean come on. This one is utterly ridiculous!

I know we will get it back with a few thousand dollars with the next refund. But they already take way more out than they should. As I've moaned about many times before, we can't do anything about it. Because he works 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, he only gets paychecks for 2 weeks out of every four, but they have to tax his checks as if he were making the same amount all four weeks (which would like double our income and put us in a way higher tax bracket). Our lovely IRS does not allow exceptions to this rule. And that extra $3600 each year would have come in handy during the year. That's $300 a month more we would net if we could have it through the year.

I really wish something could be done. We already take the maximum of allowable exemptions, just to get as much as we can. DH plagues HR each new tax year to see if it has changed, but nope. Of course it is in the government's best interests to not change the laws, they get a whopping (to me) $3600 a year from us that they get to earn interest on.

Anyway, just a rant. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Our tax return showed up in our bank account today. This is the fastest we've ever gotten it. Just 3.5 weeks.

I haven't done anything with it yet, but the plan is:

$2000.00 to a credit card
$1000.00 to Vacation fund (but will send to ING until needed)
$ 458.13 to education fund (but will send to ING until needed)

Might as well earn some good interest on those last two things. I am setting up a spreadsheet to keep track of what's in the ING account so nothing ends up in the wrong place.

I forgot to mention that I mailed off our tax refund papers on the 2/12/07 so we should be seeing a refund within 5 to 6 weeks. DH makes too much for us to qualify for free online filing, our taxes are too simple (we don't deduct, we check but standard has come out better every year so far) to purchase tax software to efile for free. So we deal with having to mail it in and wait. We do have it direct deposited each year so that makes the wait about one week less.

We are getting back a little over $500 more than we expected, when DH figured stuff out based on last years forms. I like this years forms much better! We will use the extra to either fix the dryer or buy a new one and anything leftover goes into the summer sports camp fund.

Our property tax bill came in the mail. First half is not due until the end of April. I was really excited as the taxes have dropped by over $100. The school bond on our elementary school expired, so ten years later it is now paid for. That's kind of an exciting thing, too. I'm sure the school district will be putting up a bond for either a new elementary or a second junior high within the next year or so.

The population is exploding out here, probably because it is one of the few places in western Washington where you can still buy a house for less than $100,000. Of course, the developers are working on changing that, building really out of character for the neighborhood, fancy shmancy two story houses with double garages that dominate the 3/8 acre lots. That type of house needs at least 2/3 of an acre to look right.

Most of the houses out here are simple one story 2 and 3 bedroom houses, though ours is a 4, and most people do not have garages. You can really tell which houses were built before the last 4 years because they blend in well with the rest of the houses out here. There were no two story houses in our division before 4 years ago. But neighborhoods evolve, even it it doesn't mean getting better. Not that it is really getting worse, just out of character. Property values are up according to the realtors and banks, but not the assessors, so far.

DH's W-2 finally came today. 2 days late. If I recall correctly all tax information is supposed to be in your hands by January 31. His company is always a couple days late. Drives me crazy. DH comes home tonight and I am hoping we will get our taxes done tomorrow and get that refund on its way ASAP.

We are planning to use $2000 to pay on a credit card. The rest goes in the vacation fund.