hello!

Ok, This is the start of my personal finance blog. I'm going to try to be anonymous out of respect for my husband but honestly, I'm not very good at keeping things secret. So mostly I will probably say basically everything about us except our names. :) Hopefully that will be enough anonymity.

I plan to be wide open about everything in my financial life. From income, to spending, from savings, to bad investments. Yikes, just thinking about it makes me kinda ill. But hey, it's anonymous right! I'm not perfect by any means. But I try to do the right things. Come with me on my journey for the next year and see if I will be in a better place in 12 months.

Alrighty, lets get down to business here....

Tax return time is the start of the fiscal year in my house. We just got our tax return back yesterday. $11,632. Believe me, I know this goes against what everyone says about taxes. My husband claims zero, we try to get as much back as possible. I know I know... this is a free loan to the government. But it works for us and we don't just go blow the whole thing on clothes and fancy vacations. So please, leave me be about it.

Here is a break down of our debt...

House = 144,947 payment of $1,110 apr 5.75%
Van = 22,637 payment of 462 apr 3.9%
Car = $6,674 payment of 260 apr 4.75%
Backyard landscaping = $8,445 payment of $175 apr 0%
Credit card = $350 payment of $50 (I don't know what the actual payment is but I've committed to paying $50 a month to it) apr 0%

With our taxes we plan to pay off the car, send an extra $1,000 to the house, and put the rest in short term savings. We technically don't make enough to cover our expenses, but my husband's income varies quite a bit. We have a short term savings account that covers us in the lean months. And yes, I know that if we paid less in taxes each month we wouldn't need such a big return to cover us. But the thought is that this is a temporary situation. Someday the kids will be grown, I will be working, and we will be paying cash for our cars. Then our income will be more than enough and we can blow our tax return on vacations and fancy clothes. :)