Success!

Taxes:

I procrastinated beyond all reason this year.

I finally started my mom’s taxes early last week, but didn’t check them over until Saturday afternoon. Then I used the IRS Free File site to find tax software that would e-file (and double-check my numbers) free.

Good thing I did, too, because I’d forgotten all about Making Work Pay! Since she’s self-employed, she didn’t get the boost in paycheck. Instead, it came in the form of a credit on her taxes.

I did our taxes on Sunday and, like my mom, I got a boost from the Making Work Pay credit. So, despite never getting around to writing the check for my last two quarterlies, we owed $300 less than expected. I arranged for an electronic transfer of funds and was done.

That extra $300 was applied to debt, which brings me to my next point of success…

Debt:

With that $300, plus $360 from the first couple days at my new job, our normal debt payments got a boost.

We’re waiting for a credit to come through for Tim’s trip to Washington — yay airline credit cards! — and then we will have only one card with a balance.

That means that our total credit card debt is down to $4,869.04.

Tim’s unemployment will run out in two more weeks — though we officially have two leads on jobs — but that will be $300-400 in credit card payments. In May, I’ll get a little over $2,500 for my job, which will go directly to the payment. Add in my other contract work at $1,000 a month and the card will be paid off by early to mid- June!

It’s probably a little sooner than that, but I like to hedge my bets. Unexpected things tend to crop up when I plan too carefully.

After that, we’re going to concentrate on getting Tim’s student loan ($3,000) paid off, which should take no more than two months. So we could conceivably be done with interest-bearing debt by July!

Sorry for all the bold (and exclamation points), but I’m excited!