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Home > The Saver's Credit . . .

The Saver's Credit . . .

January 12th, 2006 at 05:16 am

Today is my boyfriend's birthday. 34, Woo hoo! He has to work until midnight tonight, so we opened presents and went out to dinner last night. We had pho, which is inexpensive, and which we had both been craving. I bought him some DVDs (using Border's buy 3 get 1, and watching for DVDs already on sale). He was very excited. I finished off our collection of a couple BBC comedies - Coupling and Red Dwarf. I used the last of the Christmas money to buy his gifts.

Also, I looked over my taxes for this year and figured that I qualify for the "savers credit." I barely got under the income requirement, and only did because of my 401k contributions and deducting student loan interest (the max your adjusted gross income can be is 25,000/yr if single). This means that I can take a percentage of retirement contributions as a tax credit. I made about $1,100 in contributions to my 401k, and even though they are taken out pretax they still qualify for a credit to my taxes. That means an extra $110 in refund Smile

Now I'm debating opening a Roth IRA with my emergency fund in order to max out the tax credit. I would end up getting about 90 dollars extra in my refund, and I probably won't qualify for the credit next year since my income has increased. I just have to decide if I really want to deplete my emergency fund and start a Roth IRA earlier than I had planned. I had thought I would probably start one next year once my private student loans are paid off. Also, I'll have to find somewhere to start it where I don't have to contribute a set amount each month in order to qualify for opening an account. I think I'll talk to one of the financial consultants at my work (I work at a bank) and see if he has any options to open an IRA for around $1000. Everywhere I've looked online either has a higher minimum to open or requires contributions each month.

Other than that, things have been pretty slow around here. My boyfriend and I are heading to my parents' house this weekend. We had to rent a car again (his is still not reliable enough for the 5 hours each way, and the mountain pass). I had some expired coupons, but one of the codes still worked so the rental was 20% off. Kind of sad that we had to rent again, but overall it's cheaper than having a second car Smile Sometimes you just have to look on the bright side . . .

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Spending and Savings:

1/9:
6.00 cigarettes
4.00 coffee

1/10:
11.00 birthday dinner
6.63 cigarettes/snacks

1/11:
2.00 soda

$87.31 left in budget (til 1/19)

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