The Carnival of Personal Finance is live over at Budgets Are Sexy. There are tons of great articles, but here are some of my favorites this week:
Money Beagle asks if the bank forced you to sign your mortgage. Prepared to get fired up – there’s lots of discussion in the comments too.
You Have More Than You Think explains how friends don’t make friends overspend, when it comes to weddings. My husband and I got married on top of a mountain in our hiking clothes. I love this article!
No Debt Plan explains why doing your own taxes is a good idea. I’ve been doing my own taxes for years. Back in the day, it was simple – just a W2 and a 1040EZ, and I was all set. I would do my own, and my husband’s (back before we were married) in about an hour each year. Then we became self-employed and our taxes got much more complicated. Instead of one W2 for each of us, we had about ten 1099s each, and tons of business expenses. A few years later, we incorporated our business, and I had to contend with a corporate tax return, in addition to our personal return. I thought about throwing in the towel and going to an accountant. But I have a strong DIY nature, and more importantly, I wanted to really understand what the heck was going on with our taxes. I didn’t want to just dump a bunch of paperwork off at the accountant’s office and come back a few weeks later to sign our returns. So I poured over the tax laws, reading and re-reading things until they made sense. There were some frustrating moments, for sure. But I just finished our 2009 taxes, and it does seem to get easier every year. I now have a very solid understanding of tax laws pertaining to an S-Corp (granted, only for our particular situation, where we have no employees – but hey, I’m not doing anybody else’s taxes, so that’s really all I need to understand). I know how various expenses will impact our taxes, and I understand how the structure of our business and compensation impacts our personal return. Yes, I have devoted a lot of hours to taxes over the years, but the knowledge I have gained seems well worth it to me.
Check out the carnival when you get a chance – I’m sure you’ll find lots of interesting reading.
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