I finally got all details of taxes. Well, almost; waiting to hear what the tax guy is charging me. Right now I'm operating under assumption he'll charge $700 like last year, but our taxes were more complicated this year, so I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being more. But for now, $700.
He did decide we could claim WV money as capital gains. However, we still didn't put enough away. And I overestimated AS's state tax by a bit, but I grossly UNDERestimated her federal, so it's ugly.
Here goes:
Me and NT:
Federal owe $12,013
MN owe $2,228
WV owe $4,822
AS:
Federal owe $4,542
State overpaid -$1,201
Federal 1Q estimated 2016 tax $2,990
State 1Q estimated 2016 tax $500
Tax prep for both (est.):
$700
TOTAL OWED: $26,594
What we had saved up:
$15,331 saved from WV money + interest
$796 saved for AS federal 1Q est 2016 tax
$341 saved for AS state 1Q est 2016 tax
TOTAL IN SAVINGS: $16,468
DIFFERENCE WE NEED TO MAKE UP: $10,126
I got over my hyperventilation last night, and then got to planning. What else could I do? It was an honest mistake, I don't begrudge paying taxes, and now I just need to figure out the best way to do it where I don't pay a ton of fees or interest.
AS already has enough future payments expected to cover all but about $936 of that. And it's only March, so we expect her to book much more work. Trouble is, not all of those payments are coming in right away. The biggest one comes in 4 monthly installments starting in September when her class starts up. So how do we stay afloat in the meantime?
Interestingly, several of the cards from our recent rewards-getting churn are 0% until 2017. So we won't cancel those but will start using them as our primary cards, paying the minimum on them until we have room in the budget to pay the full balances.
That still leaves a couple of momentary shortfalls in the projected checking account balance: about $700 when tax day hits (shortfall goes away a couple days later when AS receives some checks), and $2200 when the May 1 mortgage hits (shortfall goes away May 13 when my and NT's paychecks hit).
If nothing else materializes before these two points, we may need to do a short-term line-of-credit transfer, or not pay the full balance of an interest-bearing card right away, so that would cost us a little bit in interest, but not too bad.
This all looks pretty good on paper, but there's another problem: This assumes nothing will happen that can't be folded into our regular budget categories. Things I'm not sure about: my breast evaluation, house stuff. Things I am sure about (but not sure the amount): spending during the April Va. and June NYC trips. One thing that is for sure off the table this year: AC for the house. We may not even be able to upgrade our window units this year.
But as long as we can put these things on 0% credit cards, AS's income will eventually cover the hole. It'll just take longer the more unbudgeted things we have.
This was only one of several crappy things that have happened in the past couple days, but it's the one that needs the most attention and work from me right now.
We will make it through this!
*When I say "just about worst case scenario," I mean worse than my worst-case scenario (I was thinking $8K) but not as bad as AS's worst-case scenario (she feared $20K). 
Tax bill: just about worst case scenario*
March 30th, 2016 at 06:06 pm
March 30th, 2016 at 06:45 pm 1459363509
March 30th, 2016 at 07:08 pm 1459364908
March 30th, 2016 at 08:27 pm 1459369649
March 30th, 2016 at 09:17 pm 1459372634
March 31st, 2016 at 02:57 am 1459393056
What rate does IRS charge? Prime + ? Cost of LOC? Using 0% CC as a delay tactic for events later in the year works. Does IRS allow payment via CC? Are you brave enough to ask the tax preparer for a discount? Breath and move forward, I'm confident it will all work out.
March 31st, 2016 at 04:45 am 1459399528
March 31st, 2016 at 07:06 am 1459407989
March 31st, 2016 at 12:04 pm 1459425876
April 1st, 2016 at 06:12 am 1459491130
October 3rd, 2021 at 06:22 am 1633242163