Back of the envelope

This past weekend I had the goal of washing the cars. Easier said than done, what with waking up early on a 3-day weekend. So Sunday night, having not accomplished that task, once I made it to 1 am (joanne was in bed long before that), I figured the best course of action was to just stay up all night to ensure I met my goal as well as meeting loyal reader Justing for a morning throwing session.

So I had some time to kill and caught up on some of our finances, notably getting an estimate of our tax situation, checking our various payroll withholdings, prepping our charitable giving and so on.

Some of the interesting points:

• As (soon-to-be-no-longer) DINKs, we have to have extra money withheld to avoid a large federal tax bill. But because of our 401K withholding (both maxed at $15K), we'll have a lower liability and are able to remove that for the rest of the year. I overestimated because of some extra income Joanne had reported last year because of the Freescale buyout.
  
• Joanne's 401k was looking at maxing out in October, so I reduced the withholding to stretch it out over the rest of the year.
• The net result of the two above: a "raise" approaching $1000/month. For 3+ months, anyway.
  
• With the 401k max out, we'll be low enough in taxable income next year (2008) to pay zero capital gains on any stock sales. LBA will help the cause there as well. So, assuming there is still a gain to be had on Motorola, we plan to finally be rid of it in 2008. (Long-term capital gains for those in the 5% and 15% brackets is 0 in 2008)
  
• In reviewing our charitable giving plan, we had some paper work from St Tim's for the Tuition Assistance Tax Credit. I find this to be terrible tax policy, but it does represent free money, as the money given is a credit on AZ liability and still counts as a deduction for federal. Hmm...
  

If you keep close enough track of your finances, now might be time to do a little realignment/checkup before the end of the year.