Thursday, February 10, 2011

monies & other grown up things.

last saturday night we were having one of those relaxing nights in.
i was studying and charlie decided to do our taxes even though i had promised to do them this year. i think he finally realized if he waited for me to do them he'd end up stressed out and nagging me. anyway, last year was our first year filing as married. it was awesome. made me want to get married all over again. this year ... sucked.
basically we owe a shit-ton of money to the government. which annoys me a lot because we really don't make that much money and we have a decent amount of deductions (or i feel like we should). i was a fulltime student for all of 2010. and believe me grad school tuition isn't cheap. charlie has student loans from undergrad because he had to finance 100% of his degree, he works from home (home office deduction, which trust me, we should get because we would not be living in a place this big if he wasn't working from home). there were other smaller things, too but those were the biggies.
in all honesty, i was expecting 2011 taxes to suck but i didn't think this year's would be this bad. we also tried filing separately and ended up owing $15,000 if we went that route. that's insane. seriously, insane.
i'm still pissed about the amount we owe especially when i think about people (many whom i know personally) who totally abuse the system and therefore get money they don't deserve.
i also get annoyed because we work really, really, really hard not to spend money and to save like crazy and writing a check out of our savings account kills me. there are bigger and better things that we're trying to save for. i mean, we didn't get each other christmas presents this year, we didn't take a honeymoon, we are saving like crazy to buy a house and for retirement. i realize that i have a slight problem with spending money, as in i live in colorado and don't own snow boots because the thought of spending $100 makes me throw up. but that's sort of a separate issue.
also, i realize that looking at the big picture we're still better off now than we were three years ago, that i can buy the food i need to buy, i have a roof over my head (even though the pipes keep breaking, but that's a story for another day), we're healthy, we both have jobs, i'm going to be finished with school this year, we live in a place we both love, etc.. but i'm still pissed about owing all this money.
and the way i see it is for 2011 we either better get some dependents or buy a house with a high interest rate (unless that deduction disappears).
ok, rant over (at least until we write that check).

3 comments:

Emily Silver said...

sorry, d! i have a feeling that gettin some dependents will not solve your financial problems, although i'd love it if you had a little surprise!

Emily said...

Ugh, I'm dreading this years taxes. Not only do I have four separate W-2s from last year (my original company, materinty/disability pay from insurance company, company my original company was sold to, and my new company). I'm sorry you have to write a big check - that's the worst!

Kat said...

Dependents!!! Even if it doesn't work out, trying to make them is so.much.fun ;)

But seriously, taxes suck. Sorry :(

And buy snow boots. They are SO worth every single stupid penny (all 10,000 of them!).

Signed,
Should be cold but warm in Pittsburgh because gear is my favorite thing to spend money on.