How Will You Spend Your $13 Stimulus This Week?

As you might have guessed, this post is about the individual tax credit component of the stimulus plan that President Obama signed yesterday.  It will increase the size of the average weekly paycheck (for those earning less that $75,000 yearly) by $13.

Notice that the title of this post suggests that the $13 take-home pay bump will show up this week.  It won’t.  Estimates are that the tax credit won’t actually hit the payroll and withholding systems until June.   Why is that?
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On Being Your Own Financial Planner

I have decided to put my limited skills as a fantasy interviewer into hibernation which will no doubt please many readers.  So I will move on to another subject that interests me and perhaps you:  Being Your Own Financial Planner
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Stimulus 2009: An Exclusive Fantasy Interview

I enjoyed interviewing myself so much yesterday that I’ve decided to conduct another interview.  This Q&A session is with a member of Congress who recently voted for the 2009 Stimulus plan. It is an exclusive interview that you can’t find anywhere else.  (That’s because I made it up.)   But you should read it anyway because even if our Congress people are not saying these things, they’re thinking them.  And even if they are not even thinking about some of these things, they should be.

Here is the actual transcript of the fantasy interview:

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A Baby Boomer Interviews Himself

Most of you know that Mr. ToughMoneyLove is a baby boomer.  (If you didn’t know that, you might want to read my About page.)

What some of you may not know is that I blog as a baby boomer on a different blog, Go To Retirement.  It is a blog that I started in late November 2008 in sort of a “soft launch” mode.  After working on the design and content of the site, and figuring out things such as how often I would be posting, I have decided it is time to more formally introduce readers of Tough Money Love to Go To Retirement.  I thought a good way to do that would be to have me, Mr. ToughMoneyLove, interview myself, Mr. GoTo.  So here goes.

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How to Keep Your Job – Rule 1 Edition

If what I am reading or hearing is any indication, just about anyone who is receiving a paycheck in this economy is worried about how long that paycheck delivery will last.  More to the point, they are concerned that the next knock on the door will be a grim reaper-style visit from their boss.  ”Joe – I have some bad news.”  You can guess the rest.

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My Life as a Volunteer Tax Preparer – Week 2

Yesterday was my second weekly visit to the AARP Tax-Aide office where I am volunteering as a tax preparer for elderly and low-income taxpayers.  I had not originally planned on writing a lot about these experiences but it turns out I am learning so much – about people, not taxes – that I have decided to continue to share with readers.

I had five appointments yesterday and was able to complete five returns.  All of the taxpayers that came in were retired (collecting pension income and/or Social Security).  Here are my week two observations:

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Credit Score Industry Infighting: Greed Exposed

Full disclosure:  I detest the credit score industry.

If you are like most U.S. consumers, you have been brought up (or forced to participate) in a consumer credit system in which we are taught to worship at the altar of the almighty credit score.  This causes many of us to focus on the wrong parts of our financial life while overlooking little things like true wealth building.

The FICO oligopoly has gotten into the heads of millions of Americans. Part of this is out of necessity because the credit score slime has slowly but surely oozed out of where it began.  The score has become more than just a measure of your credit-worthiness.  All kinds of businesses use it as metric of your worthiness as a person in general.  Insurance companies, landlords, prospective employers, you name it.  It’s disturbing if you really think about it.  (Please take time to really think about it.)

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Mortgage Payoff – We Pulled the Trigger

The mortgage is dead.  We killed it.

If you have been reading Mr. ToughMoneyLove for a while (thank-you BTW), you know that we have been planning on paying off one of our mortgages.  (We own two homes, one of which we use now as a vacation home and later, as a full or part-time retirement residence.)  My original target date for mortgage payoff was December 2008 but that date slipped a bit once we learned of the outcome of the election, plans for the economy were in flux, and things got busy around here.  We had been earnestly accumulating cash over the last 24 months to get this done.  
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Obama Pitches His Stimulus Plan – An Assessment

I tend not to watch Presidential press conferences because they too often are just left-over campaign speeches that have been condensed and re-packaged.    Nevertheless, I forced myself to watch President Obama’s press conference last night because it was his first as President but more important, it was his last and best opportunity to sell his stimulus plan to the American people.  This is my assessment of that attempt.

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First Lessons Learned as a Volunteer Tax Preparer

A few weeks ago I wrote about my decision to obtain IRS certification as a volunteer tax preparer for the VITA and TCE/AARP Tax-Aide programs.  Last week was my first opportunity to meet with four people who had made appointments to receive help with their returns.  

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