Saturday, January 17, 2009

Income Taxes

I didn't want to go to school yesterday, but needed to go to have our taxes done. There were two guys that specialized in teacher taxes that were going to be there. Since we'd already received our W-2, I gathered all my paper work and went to school.
I usually do our taxes, but was curious about items that he could do. I'd known about "Forced Housing", but didn't know that we could include utilities with out rent. I also didn't exactly know where to place this on the form since we don't itemize our deductions. He placed it in the first section as a negative to our income.
Now, you're probably wondering what is "Forced Housing". Because we are forced to live in teacher housing (no other is available) we can subtract rent, electric and propane. One of the advantages of living on an Indian Reservation.
To make a short story of this - we're getting back over $3000, but we have to pay $150 to Arizona.
The $3000 will go towards a car.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Exciting News!

THERE"S going to be a crop at Coordinates Collections this weekend. The crop starts on the 9th and ends on the 11th. But the challenges will be posted on Thursday evening. The prizes are always great - so come join in the fun.

Lots go Wrong!

I haven't written on my BLOG before we left for our Christmas break up in Provo with Ben and Rachel. On our way up, our car broke down and we had to call Ben to come and get us. So we were without transportation while in Provo. I learned to ride the bus and had the routes memorized to the motel and to Rachel's apartment and to the stores.

Rachel is without a job, so we had committed to do her rent for another month so she could look for work. That $400 out of Gerry's paycheck is hitting us hard now that we need to get a new car.

I'm finally in the groove to scrap. We came home from Provo all sick with colds and flu and it's taken me this long to get well. Now that my energy is being renewed, so is my desire to scrap.