Taxes. Awesome.

In the true spirit of Mundane Mondays, I'm going to go ahead and put the blog about our most excellent weekend on hold to discuss something awesome: Taxes. Aren't taxes great? I love paying large sums of money all year for stuff. I don't really know what stuff, but I'm sure it's all great.

Since I didn't have class tonight (my professor was in Philadelphia for some orientation thing), I thought I better take the opportunity to be productive. Last year I did my taxes on the first Monday of February. At that point all the "important tax documents" had come in the mail. I also had a free rental code for Redbox and really wanted to rent Zombieland starring Jesse Eisenberg. Fast forward to today. It's the first Monday in February. I had all of the necessary "important tax documents." And I had a free rental code for Redbox and really wanted to rent the Social Network starring Jesse Eisenberg. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a new first Monday of February tradition!

Seriously though, I do like to get my taxes done early. There are two main reasons for this: 1) The longer I put off doing taxes the more likely I could lose some of the "important tax documents" that come in the mail and 2) It's always nice having already received and saved a refund when April rolls around. I did not say spend the refund. In my mind, any refund received is money to be saved. My first year out of college I ended up receiving something like a $60 federal refund. In all the past years of my life I'd received a HUGE $400 refund (it was huge at the time). I'd always spent it right away on an iPod or a Playstation. That first year out of college, I couldn't wait to get my refund. I had already spent it in my head. I was going to buy an Xbox360. Then the refund came about, and after paying to file it, I couldn't even afford one videogame, let alone a console (also lovely: my state refund that year was $15, with a $14.95 charge for filing).

I decided right then I probably shouldn't just assume I'm going to get a refund. I now take the approach that I'm going to receive nothing (possibly even pay), and if I get something great...it's going into savings. The money will eventually get spent or invested, but I'm no longer going to make a knee jerk reaction and spend it just because I had it. Nowhere be a rich man who spends impulsively.

I spent two and a half hours doing taxes. It shouldn't have taken me this long, but somewhere there was a discrepancy. I won't go into detail, but let's just say I almost punished myself for the myriad of medical expenses we've had this year (the baby stuff ain't cheap) by making it look like I was stealing from our HSA (Health Savings Account) and not actually spending the money on appropriate medical expenses. Whoops.

The good news is TaxAct.com (the software I use) has a very easy site to navigate. It also helps you compare last year's return with this year's. This helped me discover my discrepancy tonight. If you haven't already picked a tax return website, that's the one I'd recommend. It gets easier every year too because they keep your previous returns on the site, thus you don't have to input redundant information every year. I should probably email those guys and let them know I plugged them on this website. I should get some sort of referral bonus.

For those of you sitting by your computer expecting vacation blogging, my apologies. I'd recommend you go rent the Social Network or Zombieland if you are in need for entertainment. They are both really great movies to watch and do your taxes to.