Working Mama Wednesday - Bonus Time 2013

A good portion of my income is made of my annual bonus. We always look forward to bonus payout because it helps us to check off a few things on our list that we'd wanted to do for the past several months but because of Christmas & New Year, both of which bring higher expenses for our family, we weren't otherwise able to do.  You know, all the exciting stuff like buying new tires where steel belts are coming through and replacing the fence at the rental house.  That being said, we always set aside a little money for each of us to spend independently on things we want.  It becomes a bit of a treat for us both to purchase something nice for ourselves without any guilt what-so-ever because all of our other expenses that we'd been putting off have been taken care of.  In this past this has meant things like a new Xbox360 for my hubby or new clothes/shoes for me.

This year my hubby new exactly what he wanted.  In fact, he knew exactly what he wanted for about 6 months and I give him super props for using self-control to avoid purchasing it earlier.  You see, our tv was 8 years old and on its last leg.  Hubby bought a 60" Sony as a bonus gift to himself after he hired on at his current job which was also his first "career-type" position.  He took great care of it and it served our family well while it lasted but unfortunately it had a problem where it was slowly turning blue.  Something related to the picture quality was actually melting so every time we turned it on or off the edge of the picture became a little more blue and we lost a few more pixels.  By the time the new year came around the damage to the tv was very obvious - every time you turned it off the screen looked more like the opening scenes of Star Wars (think "In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...) than it did a blank screen.  Those "stars" appeared during a show too.

I admit, even I was getting bothered by it.  Mie, the frugal one who doesn't care much about picture quality or screen size - I was pretty much ready to get a new one too.

So hubby researched and read and researched some more to figure out what he really wanted.  This is what we ended up buying, the day my bonus hit the bank.

And fun was had by all.  We even watched a 3D movie (well 2 of the kids did - that's all the glasses we have for now, which by the way doesn't work well when you have a 7 member family...).  Everyone's happy and the astronomical tv is headed upstairs to the play room for future use.

A few days later I had the opportunity to do some shopping of my own and buy the thing I was looking for...

These are close - I can't find them anymore online because true to self the shoes I bought were on clearance and are nowhere to be found online...

When I showed my hubby my purchase he said "don't you already have enough shoes?".  I quickly pointed out that I had 2, one for working in the yard and one for normal wear.  The ones for working in the yard I bought about 10 years ago...they are for working in the yard because I don't worry about how nasty they get out there, they are already that bad.  The other pair for "wear" are the ones I bought oh, about 5 years ago, the ones I bought to replace the others purchased 10 years ago.  I showed him where there was no more paint or materials in spots, where the sole is worn completely through in spots, etc.

I fully intended on ribbing him about here on my blog about the apparent discrepancy in our purchases and how I definitely didn't need a hard time from him on my purchase of a discount pair of shoes on clearance after 5 years (when he purchased a brand new tv with all the bells and whistles!), with my bonus.

That was, at least, until this happened:

Photo courtesy www.firehouse.com

Ok, so it really wasn't that bad but since apparently my hubby forgot to take a picture this will have to do.
Yes, I crashed my car.  Unfortunately I crashed my car into the rental car we had.  In my driveway.  While my entire family watched.  While our other car was in the shop waiting to be picked up from getting fixed after a freak accident led to its damage.  Yeah.  That.

So I guess we're even.

Moolah Monday - Tax Trouble

I finally did my taxes a few weeks ago.  I don't know what I was thinking on two fronts.  First, I must have been anxious about the results or how difficult it would be because I procrastinated longer than usual (and my hubby let mie).  Surprisingly, it was much easier than I expected once I got everything organized.  Second, why on Earth did I wait so long?  I knew this would be a problem.

As foster parents we're allowed to claim children as dependents if they were given into our care by court order, we provided for more than 50% of their expenses, and they were in our custody more than 6 months. We had 2 kiddos (#9 & #10) that qualified that way.  It's always a gamble in doing your taxes whether or not the current family will go ahead and claim the children regardless of whether or not they're legally allowed to and so it's always a good idea to jump right on your taxes as soon as you can if you plan to claim children who are or were in foster care.  Even though it is tax fraud to illegally claim someone as a dependent, families do it all the time and it's pretty annoying to get it corrected.

As a side note...gosh it seems like a long time since 9 & 10 were with us!

Sure enough, when I submitted my taxes electronically it immediately came back as rejected because social security numbers were used twice.  I tried to fix it that night but the software I use was being squirrelly, that or we have a much bigger problem on our hands.  The system is insisting that two of my 4 kids' SSNs have already been claimed.  This makes logical sense as someone must have claimed #9 and #10 (illegally of course).  The confusing thing at this point is that the software is insisting that I change the SSNs for Logan and Summer, not #9 & #10, as if THEY have already been claimed instead of the fosters.  As I said, the software is either being irritatingly squirrelly or worse, we have a bigger problem on our hands.

I'm told this situation is easy to correct.  Because our tax situation is somewhat complex with foster children, higher income, and rental property, I always purchase the extra service to deal with the IRS should they come back and audit (or have other issues).  Last year this worked out very well for us because the IRS rejected Summer as a dependent because she was adopted AND rejected her SSN because her adopted name didn't match the name on her SSN.  It was a complicated mess to sort out but in the end it worked well to have the agency folks run it down for us.

Here's hoping it's as easy to solve this time around.  I'm headed now to figure it out.