My Past, My Present and My Future...: Income Taxes, Debt and a lesson learned, looking forward to a great new year.

As of last night, I finally completed Chris' 2010 Income Taxes. We always file separately. To my surprise, his refund is larger than last year. To be exact, his Federal refund is $6,976.00 and his State Refund is $1752.00. That's pretty good for him. However, he does have the maximum deducted throughout the year. He has learned his lesson when it comes to deduction's and he had to learn the hard way. It only took one time of him paying in to the IRS and not getting a refund to master this, lol. I also let him claim Adicyn's childcare expense which was around $6,400. Although, the IRS only allows a person to claim about $2,000 of that total, he also had receipts from our Good Will Donations to charity and Auto expenses, The Mortgage and Real Estate taxes, Ad Valorem taxes, Clothing for work, mileage on the car to and from his job, and a few others. He always itemizes, as I keep every single receipt through out the year, along with a mileage and an expense report that I keep up with via Microsoft Money and using an Excel Spreadsheet.

I do the same for myself. I don't have as many deductions as he does but I usually get back around $7,000, I'm not exactly sure about this year. I don't have my W-2's just yet. One, I printed from the Government "My Pay " site from my job at the VA hospital and I am still waiting on my W-2 from my "full-time" employer. The VA hospital, I work prn for extra spending money, lol. Lately, it's been very prn. Mostly, because I dread the drive to and from Dublin. I already drive to downtown Macon for my full-time job, that's enough driving for me.

Chris wants me to get a small car, so that I won't have to drive my SUV every day, as I don't want to drive one of the Mustang's every day either. I did warn him..If we get a fourth vehicle, it's going to be a BMW M3, 3 or 5 series or a Mercedes CLK 230. I was hung up on getting an Infinity G35 for a while, but that car is too small. So we have been looking at BMW's in the Atlanta GA, Orlando and Jacksonville, Florida area. There are so many great deals out there as of right now.We definitely want to buy a cash car.

We have not had a car payment in over two years since we have paid off the Mustang's and my SUV. The yellow 98 GT vert, we paid cash for, and we drove to N.C. to pick it up.We don't want to incur any new debt, and we really can't incur any new debt because our new Mortgage application is already being processed. If we go out a get a new loan, we will have to re work everything with the under writer. I'd rather not do that. Besides, the only debt that we have right now is our current house, utilities, Auto insurance and one major credit card. Oh and the housekeeper. These are all revolving debt, just monthly expenses, nothing major. So as far as loans and lines of credit, everything is paid off and that's amazing. We are already a few steps ahead of the general population. The mortgage company couldn't believe our debt to income ratio, it's like off the charts, and this, we are so proud of.

I won't try to sit here and try to convince you that it's always been this way. Oh no, it was much different. When Chris and I moved in together, he was drowning in debt. So much, that it was overwhelming to me and I almost called it "quits", There were many times that I became pissed and outraged just at the thought - "These were not my debts, I didn't accrue them, didn't enjoy any of the benefits from them, so why am I helping to pay them off?" but I saw something in him that would make it all worth while.

His mortgage was overdue, his car was overdue and it wasn't looking good for him. He tried so hard to hide all of this debt from me, Although, he couldn't hide it for very long. The highest debt was incurred because of his ex girlfriend. He says that she attempted to become a Real Estate agent for all of like two months, and got this big idea before hand that she needed an SUV for the job, so tired of her whining, he bought her a Durango, he knew all along that she wasn't going to be good at Real Estate sales, mostly he said because she was mentally unstable.Due to lack of any extra income from her, the Durango ended up being repossessed while they were still together. It was not in her name, because she had no real income nor any credit. So yes, you guessed it that repo was on him.

Once the arrears on the Mortgage and car were caught up, the Durango loan, furniture loan, another old loan that he had for buying a mustang and his Citi-Financial loans were the next things to be paid off. We had everything paid just after our youngest daughter Adicyn was born in 2008. Paying these debts took a lot of sleepless nights, sacrifice and effort.It was a long road to travel. Now it is all water under the bridge, we ahve moved on and Chris has promised to never be that irresponsible again, so far he has stuck to his word.

I too have had previous debt, nothing of the magnitude of Chris' debt, but yes I have had real debt. My ex and I had several mortgage loans, Business and construction loans, I had a new Nissan Xterra and a new Tahoe, he had a new Dodge 2500 Diesel truck, we had credit cards and loans too. The difference is, we paid our bills because we could afford to. We never got in over our heads. He was a General contractor and I worked full-time and was a full-time college student , and even sold REAL Estate on the side. We made it work. When we would sell a few spec homes, we then would pay off a vehicle or a large loan, and we even paid down our mortgage. The housing market then was "booming". We did very well for ourselves. After I completed my degree, I was able to look for a job at my leisure while being a stay at home mommy.

Not due to finances, Eventually we were divorced, we had grown apart, we had been together since I was 15, we grew into adults that neither of us knew any longer, during that time, there was no anger or finances to be concerned about, because we had been very responsible and everything was paid and in order. We came to an amicable agreement and it was done. We have equal joint custody of our three children, he pays child support weekly for each child, that I in turn, deposit into their savings acocunts. Best of all, We have both remained good friends and we and we both continue to be responsible adults as well.

If there is one thing that I have learned throughout my lifetime, it's to be responsible with my money. It's hard to make and easy to spend. Most of America is just two paychecks away from homelessness and that is a scary thought. So live well, work hard and be happy. Do what makes you happy and never regret anything that made you smile.

Below you can see that my husband's favorite hobby is to "flip" cars, and next to his family, this is what makes him smile...

Our yellow 98 GT, before new wheels. 89k miles -black interior, new top, and we bought it for $4,000 and drove to N.C. last year to get her!

Our current Mustang- 04' GT, 78k miles, we traded , one of our yellow mustang's for this one just last year, and picked it up at Summit! This one has so many extra performance parts that we have added and we love the cowl hood ,the wheels and tires he ordered from American Muscle.

They were like sisters in our garage, :(

Chris '90 LX 5.0 coupe, 76k , he sold this one to a local friend, and he really misses it!

Original Black Interior of the coupe.

Our Mustang Bullitt that we bought in 2010, mainly just to resale. Chris had never owned one, and thought that he may like it, he decided against it, so we sold it.