My Tax Refund Savings Stimulus Plan

The good news is in: $1696 Federal and $444 State for a total of $2140. Same as last year, but still feels like an unexpected relief. $1000 will go toward my Business School deposit, $500 to maxing out my Roth IRA (stretch goal, done!), and the rest to beefing up my emergency fund. Yay!

Starting to Think about Taxes...

I’m not even scheduling the appointment yet, but this is the time of year when I start to see those notices about 2008 tax forms, that I want to make sure I am thinking about everything I want to achieve before this tax year is up. Mainly, my stretch goal of maxing out the Roth. I am oh so envious of all you other pfb’s for whom this is not a stretch goal, but rather – the very first goal at the top of your lists! I realize this is THE personal finance no brainer, however, right now, given everything, I think my emergency fund is the most important expense. Also, I will admit to suffering from a little saver’s self-righteousness… I feel like I already do contribute hefty percentages of my income to my retirement savings, and when I’m only 24! Do I really need to max this out? Or so the small whiny voice in my head goes…

So until I file next month, I will start straightening myself out to see how much I will need to contribute to max it out. I do want to check back in on my charitable giving for 2008 and make sure I did everything I wanted to do. I definitely increased my giving over last year, which has been my unofficial goal when it comes to charitable giving. But I want to start thinking about more structured goals for 2009 – what are the right charities, etc? Thus far, it’s been more of whatever came along…

Why is enrolling in health care benefits so damn confusing?

I finally re-enrolled in the same health plan I had last year… but I still don’t feel completely confident in my choice. Mostly because I still don’t feel like a very savvy consumer of my benefits. I work for a company that has great, comprehensive health care, so I can supposedly breathe easy.

What I did differently: Upped my Health Care Spending Account $300 (I didn’t fund this at all last year). That means my monthly premium will go up $25, but hopefully I can maintain my very minimal out of pocket costs. For me, I would much rather stagger my spending in a predictable way. Nothing worse for me than having an unexpected medical bill dropped into my monthly budget.

The Deductible Details: My effective deductible is $600 annually. I technically must pay full-sticker for health care until this deductible is met. High, but reasonable for my annual budget, in my view. Then, I pay copays for everything afterwards - $15 for a doctor visit or prescription, etc. etc. Then in the details there is a different figure: Maximum Out of Pocket Costs: $2,600. I guess that means there is a $2,000 cap on all copays that I would pay in the course of a year over my deductible.

What I don’t understand: The impact of my Health Care Spending Account on my taxes. I get that these dollars are tax-free. But I really don’t understand how it effects my April tax return on a dollar basis.

My Health: Being in my mid-twenties and a relatively healthy person with no chronic conditions, I have to say my health is good. But I’ve had a few issues that I could see escalating. I’ve had some eye issues that don’t seem to be getting better, and I’m also having some semi-serious medical testing conducted this week. I also decided to get the HPV vaccine Gardasil this year.

What I’m not sure about: Under this Health Plan last year, due to employer pre-tax contributions in my personal health account, I never paid any significant out of pocket costs. Once I had some pricey dental work done, which was a chunk, but I knew that wasn’t covered in my insurance – so it was separate. I guess what I worry about is that this year, I will start really nicking into that $600 – and I’m guessing that would happen in several high-dollar due-all-at-once incidences. That worries me… but I still think this is the best plan.

Sigh. Why is Open Enrollment for Health Benefits so damn confusing?! I’m linking to an article on tips for evaluating health care coverage. It is very basic, but does give you a good checklist of things to think through as you decide.

The Tax Return Report + Work Challenge

I’ve already gotten my prepared tax return back and filed, and the report back is more favorable than I thought! $2,038 return altogether ($1,607 federal and $431 state).
I could contribute another $1200 into my Roth IRA to hit the $4,000 maximum for 2007 and the deadline is April 15th so I have some time, but I don’t think I will end up doing this. I’m already feeling pretty good about my Roth monthly deductions, and I think I could really use the money to get whole on my emergency fund, so that’s probably what I’ll do.

Add in whatever small amount comes in with Mr. Bush’s rebate checks, and that might be a nice little boost.

Also, I’m taking up Krystal’s Challenge over at Give Me Back my Five Bucks to not buy my lunch or any snacks while at work until March 31. I have to say I’m pretty good at this already. I take my lunch most days, also bring healthy snacks from home, and (because I work for a food company) there are usually surprises left out in the office for those days when a craving strikes. It takes so long to walk all the way down to our cafeteria that I’m usually not motivated to do that either. So I don’t think this will be too terribly hard. But a month’s a long time, so we’ll see.