My last tax refund

I'm practically itching to get J & my tax return in. I've already compiled all of our interest info by going into each account online and printing the document (verses waiting for the postman - man I love the Internet). I will be able to e file on Monday.

For the past 3 years I have been using Taxact . I like how they carry over all of our info, provide tax tips and it only cost $16 to file both Federal and State taxes. Also, it typically takes 2 weeks to get my money from the Fed when I e file. This is so much cheaper than the tax refund loans that people take out. The IRS has a list of sites that will e file your return for free if you meet certain income limits.

This year we're looking at getting 3K back and it's a nice chunk of change that will help bump up our savings (minus 1K for misc wanton abandonment ). However, this will be the last tax refund as with J going to school, it makes no sense to be without this money during the year (also a lot of PF gurus gripe about how you are allowing the gov to make interest off your money each year). My refund never seemed enough to warrant changing my withholding, especially when I turned on the radio last year and listened to a segment where people called to discuss their tax refund amounts. We're talking about 8K, 15K, 21K. I couldn't believe my ears. The sad thing is most of the people were so broke during the year that as soon as the hot cash hit their hands it was spent.

I used the IRS withholding calculator to figure out how much to take out without the fear of having to pay up next year.