YES!!!!!!

YES!!!!!

For many, I know that tax time is a dreaded time of year for many families and my heart goes out to them, particularly during these difficult economic times...but, for us, tax time is a welcome time of year every year. I know, can you believe I'm actually saying that I'm a fan of the taxing (sorry about the pun) task of tallying up our household deductions and itemizations and reporting to Uncle Sam our annual income, expenses, etc. every year?! It sounds strange I know, but we always have ALOT of deductions and itemizations to claim each year which in all previous years has resulted in some very nice returns to us after filing.

Now, if you backtrack to my previous posting a few days ago (http://ashley-twinsanity.blogspot.com/2009/01/5000-and-counting.html), then you will recall that I was just embarking upon the process of totaling up our miscellaneous medical expenses for last year. Now, just a few days later, I have compiled all of the medical providers statements showing our out-of-pocket medical expenses for the year 2008 and lo and behold, the final tally reveals a whopping $10,982.98 in out-of-pocket costs for Paige and Taylor! Man, are they expensive, because mind you this $10K+ is over and above what our medical insurance covered for the twins last year. So, I say again, YES!!!!! YES!!!!!! YES!!!!!

Now, I'm only divulging our medical expenses on this blog posting because it all points back to the twins. Kids are always expensive but when you have children with some unique and special needs as Mike and I do, the costs for raising children instantly becomes much, much, much more expensive in that department. I share the medical costs that we pay out-of-pocket for last year only to illustrate just how much those lil' stinkers really cost us...of course, they are ALWAYS AND ABSOLUTELY WORTH EVERY PENNY, but nonetheless, they are expensive in the medical/healthcare department.

In closing, I am getting ready to schedule our appointment with Uncle Sam at H&R Block within the next week and am feeling pretty optimistic that we're once again going to get a nice return this year...thanks to our deductions for owning a home, for our giving to various 501C3 charities throughout the last year, and especially thanks to those extraordinary and exorbitant medical bills for little ones Paige and Taylor!

So, you may be wondering what we might do with our returns this year...well, we're going to stay practical - very practical indeed - and apply our returns to other bills and financial obligations. In previous years, we've splurged on ourselves one way or another. One year, my husband got a great new set of golf clubs while I did a little shopping for myself, the twins and our home. Last year, we even used a portion of our return to purchase a nice LG plasma. However, this year, we're not going to do any of that....these are tough economic times for our country so while we watch and wait to see what our entire overall economy is going to do, my husband and I are going to keep our spending resulting from any tax returns very conservative and send it away to bills and financial obligations. The time for splurging can happen some other time, some other day, some other year. We may even decide to pay off our BMW 3-series a couple months early...the final payment is in May this year, but what the heck, maybe we'll pay that off early just for good measure and to free up even more personal income.