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Month: March 2007

Electronic tax filing results

Electronic tax filing results

I’ve been filing my returns electronically for the last 4-5 years and each year the process gets smoother and smoother.  This year I filed by taxes electronically last Sunday.  My state return showed up in my bank account on Wednesday and my federal return showed up on Friday.  I was impressed to file and get my money back in the same week.  Maybe I hit a dead spot, but either way it with that fast of a turnaround it makes me think that things are getting more and more automated so even in peak times I would think turn around should be pretty fast if done electronically. 

In case anyone is wondering I took my tax money and then some and used it to pay down my HELOC.  I haven’t talked too much about my HELOC on this blog partly because I’ve been pretty diligent about paying it off on my own.  I took it out 1.5 years ago when we purchased our house and the balance was at $16,500.  After yesterdays payment I only have $1,000 remaining, I’m still trying to estimate my cash flow out for next month and may be able to just go ahead and pay the entire thing off as I’ve seen to had a good string of luck lately running into unexpected money.

Edit: I actually just paid it off entirely. Feels good to pay off debt 🙂

Back to taxes – remember you have until April 17th this year to file your taxes, but if you are getting a refund you may want to go ahead and get your money back before then, it’s painless and quick if you file electronically.

I just don’t get it – what is the big deal about gas prices?

I just don’t get it – what is the big deal about gas prices?

If there is one thing I don’t understand is, how much people care about gasoline prices. If a news story came out today that said tomorrow all gasoline prices are going to jump by 10 cents, there would be lines wrapped around the block waiting to fill up for gas. I mean it would be great if people were actually that concerned about their finances, that the extra $1.20 (12 gallon gas tank) it was going to cost them just was unacceptable, but it’s not it’s something else and I don’t get it.

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What are your thoughts on Wal-Mart?

What are your thoughts on Wal-Mart?

Me and my family do a lot of our shopping at Wal-Mart, in fact we almost do all of our shopping at Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart seems to be a very controversial store when it comes to its reputation.  Some people love Wal-Mart and other people hate it.  I have some family members who refuse to even step foot in the store, while other families members do most of their shopping at Wal-mart like me.

I was just curious what my readers thoughts were on Wal-Mart and whether they think it is a great store to find a good bargains or if it is the evil empire  and refuse to shop there.  The reason I ask is I know I have certain opinions about Wal-Mart the store/company (which I will discuss in a follow-up post), but I wanted to possibly get some insight into what people like and don’t like about Wal-Mart and how many people are on each side of the fence

So I got a couple questions for you.

  1. What are your thoughts on Wal-Mart (good,bad)?
  2. Why do you feel that way?
  3. If you have some insight into why they are good or bad where did you get this information?
   OR   

If you have any preferences one way or the other I really would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks,
MFJ

No Credit Needed is famous

No Credit Needed is famous

NCN over at No Credit Needed has hit it big time.  Not only has been mentioned in the NY Times a couple weeks ago and linked to by a number of high profile websites, he just did an interview for Oprah’s radio show.  Then to top things off he’s being interviewed by a television station out of Atlanta.  Rumor has it he’s also dating Jennifer Aniston (just kidding NCN’s wife).

NCN has had a great few year blogging and has managed to dig himself completely out of over $11,000 in debt and is now worth over $43,000 more than he was just 22 months ago before he started blogging. He’s got a very inspirational story and does all he can to help his fellow bloggers have the same success he has had. He has a couple related sites and deserves all of the attention he is getting. Go check out his sites.

Carnival of Personal Finance #90 Recap

Carnival of Personal Finance #90 Recap

The Carnival of Personal Finance #90 is hosted at Map Girl this week and uses a circus theme.  My post on 20%+ guaranteed return on your money in 2 easy steps. is in SideShow One.  As usual there are tons of entries in the carnival of personal finance and map girl did a good job of ranking them so that you can get to the good articles without having to completely weed through the 90 or so entries.

Anyway if you are even lazier here are a couple that I thought were really good.

Festival of Frugality #64 Recap

Festival of Frugality #64 Recap

The Festival of Frugality #64 is being held at Getting Green this week. Getting Green is a newish blogger to the personal finance community but hit the ground running and posts a number of high quality articles each day, so after reading the festival be sure to check out his other posts.

My article about How to go about frugal landscaping – Part II is up toward the top.

Some of the other articles that I really enjoyed are