April Wins and Losses

[sadlebred]

Whatcha got for April?

[sadlebred]

W: I won Powerball!!!!!

L: I'm still fighting the disability insurance company about 2 payments I haven't seen. They were supposed to be paid within days after the claimed days off. Nope. No check, no direct deposit. I talked with my company's disability analyst at the insurance company Friday. There is some hope of getting them this week. This affects my ability to have spending money and grocery money this month since I have 2 paychecks that will be smaller.

[quesyrah]

I started off saying congratulations but then wondered if it’s an April Fool’s Day joke….

[janegold]

sadlebred, early congrats on your future win!

Loss for me is that I forgot to submit my 2023 fitness reimbursement (for $600) to my health plan by March 31. I submitted it this morning anyway, hoping that I might get some kind hearted reviewer willing to push it through a few hours late. I'm not optimistic, but fingers crossed.

[sadlebred]

Apr 1, 2024 10:11:10 GMT -5 quesyrah said:

I started off saying congratulations but then wondered if it’s an April Fool’s Day joke….

Yeah, I can only wish! Then I wouldn't be concerned about what is overall a not-large-amount of disability pay.... I do have a ticket for tonight's draw.

[trissie18]

W: Received a notification from TurboTax that they messed up the home energy credit deduction and I had to amend our 2023 federal taxes. Went from owing $367 to receiving a $361 refund. 

[ohgillian]

W: Received federal refund already.

L: I messed up in measuring something related to a house project and it’s a $1500 mistake. Sob.

[simpsongal]

Apr 1, 2024 15:41:14 GMT -5 trissie18 said:

W: Received a notification from TurboTax that they messed up the home energy credit deduction and I had to amend our 2023 federal taxes. Went from owing $367 to receiving a $361 refund. 

Interesting....I still need to file our taxes.  I had put in some numbers and I didn't think they were giving us adequate credit for the insulation we installed last year, wonder if TT is still fixing those new credits.


W: Home renovation is OVER!  (I'll PIP in a bit, waiting on potential window treatments, installation of the dishwasher panel, and I need to make a breakfast table).  No more large sums of money leaving our pockets except to repay the project (except for the material to make the table and the window treatments).  

L: See above re taxes - we need to file and I know we'll owe   - we tried to get closer this year and upped extra withholding yet again.  I'm hoping we at least don't owe penalties.
ETA: Our itemized deductions basically broke even w/the std deduction - womp womp.  Had we been able to deduct all our state and property taxes (TY salt cap) we'd have had an extra $17K in deductions....ETA 2 I found a few more charitable contributions that took us into itemized deductions, yay!  We still owe a lot....

[mae0111]

W/L I guess?

Over 4 years ago, DH asked me to sign his mom up for Hulu as a Christmas gift. So I did. And I put it on my CC (that I pay), and have been paying for Hulu monthly ever since.

Apparently, about 3 years ago, DH ALSO signed his mom up for Hulu, and started paying for it on his CC. He did not tell me this, and he had my nephew update all of her login info. Apparently he forgot that I was already paying for it.

So yesterday he decided to dig in to all of the streaming services we're paying for. He asked me what I'm paying for on my card, and I told him, "Peacock and Hulu for your mom." No, he said, I'm paying for Hulu for my mom.

Ugh. So we've been double-paying for Hulu for THREE YEARS.

So of course it's a loss, but a win that we discovered it and I canceled my Hulu subscription??

[trissie18]

Apr 2, 2024 8:57:33 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

Apr 1, 2024 15:41:14 GMT -5 trissie18 said:

W: Received a notification from TurboTax that they messed up the home energy credit deduction and I had to amend our 2023 federal taxes. Went from owing $367 to receiving a $361 refund. 

Interesting....I still need to file our taxes.  I had put in some numbers and I didn't think they were giving us adequate credit for the insulation we installed last year, wonder if TT is still fixing those new credits.

It had to do with filling out the energy credits before the forms were finalized - TT ended up deleting the information inputted rather than updating it once the forms were finalized.

[niq]

W: My raise is (barely) above inflation this year!
W: Bonuses were funded to 104%
L: Holy shit we are spending too much money.

[chpmnk1015]

L: DDs sweet 16 in July will be way more than i planned; we can cover it but damn.

[simpsongal]

niq yours reads like a haiku

DH just asked when we need to budget for DS (10) to get braces....hopefully not until next year

[wanderingback]

W: I stepped down for a director role so now I technically work 3 days a week! I do contract work and other projects 2 days a week, along with my per diem job (2-3 shifts a month), but now my schedule is so much more flexible and I think overall my earnings are going to be higher in the long run.

L: had to recertify my income for student loans, which I haven’t done since being in residency and fellowship. So now my payments are $1415/month, ugh sucks. But I guess a win is that I’m on track to qualify for pslf December 2025.

[TR]

L: We owe $5200 in taxes
W(?): We earned just under $5000 in interest from switching to a high interest savings account last year so that helps offset the taxes due lol

[sadlebred]

W: Half of my disability insurance payments finally came in. Not much, but it can go into savings (see: off work for 2 months for open heart surgery. Yes, I'm back to work. Yeah....)

[heygrey]

W: We got a dog and so far everything we've bought has fit within our normal budget. We've been able to borrow (crate) or were gifted (multiple leashes, collars, etc.) some things. We will have some big vet bills in the near future for her spay, but otherwise this has not been the money suck that I imagined it could be.

[midwestmama]

W: We were on spring break last week, near Destin, FL. We stayed in a condo complex with a few friends, and all enjoyed the complex and proximity to the beach, restaurants, and activities for our kids. One of our friends reached out to a property manager who manages multiple condos in the complex, and she was willing to give us all 25% off for booking with her next spring break. So we did, as did our friends, and for next spring break, we booked a better condo, for one more night than this year, for about the same cost as this year (if not slightly less). With inflation probably not slowing down too much, I feel it's a win to book a 2025 vacation with 2024 dollars.

[brooke77]

L: We went to Disney for Spring Break.
W/L: We “only” owed $4k in taxes this year (last year was $20k), so it feels like a semi-win
W: We haven’t used our heating/cooling yet this month either

[quesyrah]

W: we switched internet service providers and now have faster internet for less money

L: none yet!

[Susie]

Tax day is working out to a big L for me.  Somehow we have a $3k state refund, and a $15k IRS bill.  It boggles my mind.  

Doing my taxes also requires me to actually figure out in hard numbers how much we spend on childcare annually and it's horrifying.  I'm holding out for that W in Sept when my little one goes to K, and we just have after care and vacations, instead of full time tuition.

[ssmjlm]

Small W: we've been sticking to meal planning and eating at home
L: 4 birthdays in April/May including E's 11th and hers is at a party place, so we'll owe the other 1/2 the money

I realized I was putting $20 extra to state tax, I think because one year it was close, but I don't think I need to have that extra taken out. We got a decent refund this year that was more than I am witholding extra.

[lust2hart]

W: Our mortgage is under $50K! We're on track for it to be gone in 12-15 months.

[Pom]

Tales from early-ish retirement, April edition:
H retired in February. We just got back from seeing family & chosen family in Ohio, Nashville, TN & Texas. So with our first post retirement trip is under our belt, I was somewhat terrified about our spending while traveling. We were away almost 3 weeks and traveling with our cat. We had 5 nights in a hotel, all other overnights were in our gracious families’ homes, but we also had one night during the eclipse weekend hoopla and so extra expensive. My hometown was in the path of totality and that was beyond amazing.

Wins: We came in close to budget, so I’m not even upset. We are also getting a small refund from Feds & State which I’m sure was due to hefty QTP since last year. H also fixed his truck tail lights which were shorting from a leak. Dealership wanted $700 and it was DIY fixed for $135.

Losses: can’t think of any but April isn’t over. lol

[heygrey]

WIN: I got an email this morning saying that the remainder of my federal student loans will be forgiven! I have been paying $0/month on IDR so it won't effect our budget, but it will be one less thing to manage mentally.

Once this is processed we will be completely debt free aside from our mortgage.

[shortstax]

W: My boss hinted that I would get a slight bonus as part of my annual review, and I asked if it could be a bump in pay instead, and 2 weeks later it was approved!

Hopeful win: Hope to finally get my dad's Medicaid application approved for this month...fingers crossed!

L: Not a loss, but we went a little over budget on vacation. Not a ton, but it's rare for us.

[quesyrah]

Apr 12, 2024 17:55:57 GMT -5 heygrey said:

WIN: I got an email this morning saying that the remainder of my federal student loans will be forgiven! I have been paying $0/month on IDR so it won't effect our budget, but it will be one less thing to manage mentally.

Once this is processed we will be completely debt free aside from our mortgage.

Congrats! That is awesome

[quesyrah]

Apr 11, 2024 12:04:42 GMT -5 lust2hart said:

W: Our mortgage is under $50K! We're on track for it to be gone in 12-15 months.

Amazing!

We have $65K to go and it feels so close yet so far.

[mlkgls]

So far April has been much less expensive than last month! 

W: My annual merit increase was a tad more than expected and a nice bump this week. I’m incredibly burnt out and debating whether to throw it all into retirement (in order to retire as soon as humanly possible) or split it with my vacation fund. 

L: We have been eating out so so much much. I don’t even want to add up what we’ve spent on food lately. 

[ellipses84]

Win: I finally finished our taxes! I filed an extension on my business taxes (earlier deadline) but in reality I need them done to do our personal taxes so I had to finish them both. I knew I overpaid a little on my quarterly taxes and our w-2 jobs withholding was too low but I was baffled that we were going to owe so much. I decided to double check everything and realized a code box was checked incorrectly and it made thousands of dollars of difference. In the end, we are getting back a few hundred from federal after subtracting what we owe for state. I also fixed my w-4 for next year since it was calculating like that one job is our only source of income for the entire household. We have 1099 income too!

Losses: Everything else 😆 Inflation, sigh. We had a few hundred in extra medical expenses since I needed testing and it’s the first time I’ve used my insurance this year (but all is fine). We had a staycation for spring break to save $$ and mostly did free things, but going to baseball game for 4 people ended up costing over $500 between mid-grade tickets, parking, dinner and drinks 😮 Good thing we typically only go once a year when our favorite team is in town.

W/L: We have a bunch of friends and family visiting this weekend for a couple of concerts. I’m sure we will spend a lot on restaurants while they are here. Some still need to pay us for their tix. We are actually taking the kids to one concert because they like the band and the tickets we bought last fall were cheaper than a babysitter! It will be my almost 8 year old’s first concert at a cool newer venue I haven’t been to yet. We bought tickets for a different date in a neighboring city, but decided not to go. I sold all but 2 of those tix and I’m hoping they sell, otherwise we will give them to a friend’s brother who lives there.