Make Money and Save Money

My husband and children are avid World Wrestling Federation fans, they watch every show. My house is overrun by wrestling figures posed and placed in random spots, at least it seems random to me. My two year old son can always be found with one sticking out of his mouth and few others laying here and there.

We own every movie that stars a WWE talent, most recently we purchsed “Condemned” with Stone Cold Steve Austin as the male lead (not bad at all really it was much better than I thought it would be). My husband owns 15 different T-shirts featuring the Texas Rattlesnake and every figure they have made. We also have a slew of Rey Mysterio, The Undertaker, Edge and the Hardy Boys thrown in there.

I found a few things this morning that are cool and cheap (hey, gotta find a bargain these days right). Hope someone else gets some use of this post, if you like the deals let me know and I will post different categories of things on a regular basis.

Five Bucks or Less

Between $5 and $10

Between $10 and $15

My local morning news show ran a small clip about a list of entities that will be getting some of the our state’s stimulus funding, I was appalled. Here I am living less than 30 minutes from Elkhart Indiana, you know the one President Obama talked about, and no mention at all of any money going to create jobs there.

However our local College, Notre Dame, will be seeing 1.2 million dollars (at least that’s what I saw). Our public schools get a pittance of less than $200,000 to work with, now where exactly is the justice in that? The college has many other avenues of funding available to them that the public school’s don’t get, how is that fair? I guess I just do not get the thinking behind the dividing of the funds.

I did not see any listing of new job creations, retraining of displaced workers or anything that would benefit the average Jane and Joe who find themselves unemployed. At best I see temporary jobs being created, once the project is finished the workers would be laid off again. That may be good for the now but what about later, they will find themselves looking at the same bleak scenario they are living with now.

Guess I need to step off the soapbox for now and wait to see if anyone else is as offended as I am by the list. Just tickles me the wrong way.

Whew! I have made it through the busy part of tax season, the first week after the 31st of January. As most knows every employer by law has to send out their employee’s W-2’s by January 31st. Now that I have slowed down a bit I took a look at the hours I have put in the last two months and realized I hate being salary!

I signed my contract not even thinking about the possibilties of working more than what my contract stated. In two weeks I put in 163 hours, making my hourly rate of pay a little under $6. Ughh, but I am not going to complain because at least I have a job and at least I am able to pay my bills.

Did you know that the percentage of people on unemployment right now is staggering, even more staggering than that are the amount of people out of work who don’t qualify for unemployment. I was in the hospital emergency room not long ago and the nurse was telling my husband and I she had been working there for 27 years, remarkable. However, she only had two weeks left before they “cut back” and she would be jobless.

I started this Blog to highlight the many ways I have earned some extra cash and how I have saved some money over time. What I did not expect or really understand at the time was that most are already doing everything I come up with. It is a scary time in our financial history here in America, not completely hopeless but looking bleaker each day.

I have seen alot of people that really need to get a clue and stop complaining that they took a paycut and be happy they weren’t laid off. Stop thinking that the government owes you something just because you breath air in America, forget about the new Stimulus that was passed and find a job. Any job, don’t get particular now take the first one that opens up to you. In another few months it will be paying at least $7.25 an hour when the increase in minimum wage goes into effect come July. Get in now and hope something better opens up to you soon, in the meantime pay your bills and feed your family.

Now I will sit back and take the pelting of vulgar words I know will be applied to this post. I can take it, come on give me a constructive dialog to feed off of.

I jumped online today really quick and the first thing I saw was an article written for the Wall Street Journal called Early Filers Pile on Errors. As someone who deals with taxes on a daily basis I have to agree with the statement  “As if doing your tax return wasn’t tricky enough, it’s particularly easy to make mistakes this year, thanks in large part to the economic-stimulus payments sent out in 2008…” .

The confusion began upon the first IRS drain on January 17th and is still afecting returns almost a full month later. Early filers either put in the wrong amount they received, eroniously claimed the credit or put the stimulus amount they received on the Recovery Rebate Line instead of the amount they are due if any. If your filing status did not change from last year to this chances are you already recieved your Credit in full last year. If you added a dependant or your income changed dramatically then you may be entitled to additional amount this year.

If you use a tax service professional that offers you the choice of receiving a loan off of your federal refund like Jackson Hewitt or H&R Block, then claiming an amount other than zero for the RRC will automatically disqualify you for those bank products. Their work around for this tricky situation is to leave the line blank and let the IRS determine your amount.

The problem that is arrising is this: electroniclly filed returns are historiclly funded somewhere within 8-15 days from the time the IRS acknowledges the return, but with the extra work involved tracking down filers who are indeed due a Recovery Rebate Credit can delay the IRS funding by about a week.

The problem this is presenting to the Tax Professional industry is anxious and annoyed Tax Filers who wanted their money yesterday. Many do not understand the tax filing process and believe that their preparer must have made a mistake on their return causing the delay. The automated messages the IRS has set up to help filers keep track of what is going on with their returns, makes it even harder to convine taxpayers that although the recording says a mistake was made on their return, the mistake was necessary in order to process their return with the bank.

The banks loan taxpayers some or all of their “estimated” tax refund IF they do not appear to be a “risk”; in some cases in as little as 1 day. It is costly but many do not care about the extra money as long as they can get their money today. The problem that is being encountered this year is the banks are denying more taxpayers than in the past and the taxpayers must wait until the IRS deposits their refund before they receive a check. Sometimes this can be closer to or beyond that 15th day.

Everyday I deal with angry taxpayers who did not pay attention when I explained the process and they selectively disregarded the “estimated” wait time. Just because we have estimated a 8-15 day wait does not mean the taxpayer will receive their refund in that time. Ultimately the IRS is in control of when you will actually receive your refund if you receive it at all.

Well I hope the taxpayers that read this will keep in mind that their paid tax preparers are just that, someone who “Prepares” your taxes. Once the tax return is submitted and accepted by the IRS the preparer can do nothing but wait just like you.