Moving my online presence

I finally bought my own website. You can find me at Http://apairofbartletts.com

Vacations!

This year is shaping up to be the year of vacations for me. I have 5 trips already planned, 4 of which include flying (I hate flying and wish I could just teleport there!) 

March - Wisconsin/Chicago (10 days) - free plane ticket since part of the trip is for work 

April - Vegas (2 days) - driving 

May - Minneapolis (4 days) - free ticket with reward points 

June - Wisconsin/Chicago (9 days) - free ticket with reward points 

November - Hawaii (8 days) - $$$$$ lol Hawaii is expensive! 

I'm pretty sure there will be a trip to AZ for either thanksgiving or Christmas as well. I also booked our campsites for Memorial Day and 4th of July weekends but those are both less than an hour from home. Summer months will be filled with camping locally. 

Marriage tax penalty

While I am not married yet, I went ahead and entered my boyfriend's info into turbo tax to see what difference it would make on our tax returns.  I always knew we would pay more as a married couple because of the so called marriage tax but now I know for sure. 

As married couple:

Federal: $4400 back

State: owe $1 

Total: $4399

As individuals:

Federal (me): $5669

State: $502

Federal (him): $1263

State (him): $192

Total: $7570 (-$56 for filing taxes twice) 

We would have to pay $3171 MORE in taxes if married. Thank you government for reminding me why people stay single. I claim 1 on my deductions so this huge return is all due to buying a house last year. My boyfriend claims 0 as he likes a bigger refund. Eventually we will get married because not getting married due to a tax penalty is bogus to me but I will still be irritated about it once that day comes. 

Living in a religious state

Whenever I mention that I live in Utah, the first thing out of anyone's mouth involves the word, Mormon. Some will ask what wife number I am. Haha no they do not practice polygamy here anymore. I was just reading an article that said Utah is the 2nd most religious state in the US and I believe it. Never have I lived somewhere where religion is in my face on a regular basis. Back in the Midwest there were religious people but we never talked about it and I rarely thought about it. I was raised catholic, went to a catholic grade school from 3rd - 8th grade, attended REP clases in high school, and was confirmed. It wasn't until college that I started to pull back and question religion. While I am no longer a practicing catholic, I consider myself somewhat religious though probably more on the agnostic side now. It's been a huge transition living in Utah. To be surrounded by their deeply rooted religious beliefs, it's a far cry from liberal Chicago where I last lived. While I don't agree with all the Mormon beliefs/teachings I say to each their own and as long as I can live my life the way I want that's all I care about. I will say though that if I was to join a church again it would not be the Mormon church. There is no way I would ever give up alcohol, wearing tank tops or other "non modest" clothes, hours of my life that I would have to spend in church, and I most definitely would never wear garments under my clothes. It's so hot here in the summer, the less clothes the better. I will say this though, the people in Utah are extremely nice and always willing to help. If that's the result of religion than they are doing something right in their teachings!  There are so many other things I could say on this topic but I will save it for another day. 

It's raining money!

While I hate the rain (it rarely rains in Utah, though ironically it's raining today!) I love money.  And right now my forecast is calling for more money to fall from above until March anyway. What do I mean by this? Well January was a 3 paycheck month which meant $2K+ extra coming in. February will be my best month as I received my bonus from work.  It was a 5 figure check but I was only expecting 4 digits so I was definitely in shock when my boss told me. I'm lucky I didn't fall out of my work chair. I know my mouth dropped open and my eyes got wide which is hard to do as I inherited the small beady looking eyes. Haha. She went on to tell me that another 15% of my salary will be deposited into my 401k as well. "Free" money that's tax free (for now)? Yes please! Getting paid over $25K in one day, no big deal right?!? To continue on, March will bring my tax returns. Thanks to my house purchase last year, I am getting $6700 back. Another surprise I wasn't expecting. 

While this all adds up to a lot of money, it's all accounted for. I just scheduled my last payment for my Home Depot credit card. The balance on the card was from home remodeling we did last year. My sears credit card that has the balance for the windows I replaced back in Novemver will be paid off with my tax return.  The remaining money will go to savings. 

All in all, I am so excited to almost be credit card debt free again! 

To new beginnings

I decided to start a new blog as my previous blog was set up as a way to document debt payoff. While I will be in debt for years to come (unless someone wants to pay off my mortgage!) I have lost the desire to write a blog focused solely on money. This blog will be about everything and anything I feel like sharing.  Basically a way for me to look back on my life one day while hopefully interacting with others!