Paying Bills

I've updated my debt total. It went up by $17.39, but I'm okay with that. That's the interest I have to pay on a credit card. It sucks, but if I'm being realistic, that's all part of the debt game we play. Our debts go down as we make payments, but go up again when we either use the credit card or interest is accrued on purchases. Just means I've lowered my debt by $839.33, instead of $856.72. Again, I can't get frustrated by this or I'll give up. It is what it is.

So Friday I was going over bills I could pay and I had a little left over. Well, not really. I paid the bills that would affect my credit score - credit cards and loans. I didn't pay utilities or my homeowners association due. And, if I'm completely honest, I'm not sure how much of those I can pay with the next paycheck.

Living paycheck to paycheck sucks. You try to plan and budget, but life takes unexpected turns. Like, this month I had the additional costs of paying my Adobe subscription and my car registration. So that means that other bills won't get paid this month. Next month, I have to pay AAA. And so on and so forth. One day I'll catch up.

Now, in the past, I've waited until I received my tax refund and caught up on all my bills at that time and then blow the rest on stuff I've wanted. But I'm trying to save my money this year. I want to put as much of my tax refund in my savings account to get it up to $5000. Then I can really start paying off these bills and paying off the debt. Right now, I'm getting about $4000 back between state and federal. I'm still waiting on a couple documents, though, including a mortgage statement and a 1099-R from a 401k I cashed in from a previous job. I'm also waiting on the depreciation schedule form to become available so I can add my computer. I use it for business, so I'm including it on my taxes. Now, how much all of this is going change my refund is yet to be seen. So right now I'm just waiting.

I'm half tempted to enter my information in both Turbo Tax and HR Block and see who gives me a bigger refund. LOL - It should all be the same, right? Who knows? I've always used HR Block, but I'm using Turbo Tax this year because I get a discount through work, and I found out that I get Quickbooks for free because of my business. That in itself might be the incentive to file with Turbo Tax. I can add to my monthly lists to add information to Quickbooks and maybe I'll get a better tax refund next year. Who knows?

Well, I'm off. I have other projects to work on tonight. No video games. LOL.

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