Obama’s new “Making Work Pay” plan has been officially enacted, and you should have noticed a nice little bump in your takehome pay over the last several paychecks (assuming you’re not making a boatload of money already; it gets phased out).
The tax credit is essentially a $800 tax break for married couples ($400 for single or separate filers) that is another attempt to “stimulate the economy” (sidenote: Chris has recently discovered Pepsi Max, which has 0 calories but twice the caffeine of normal Pepsi; is there a way to just feed that to the economy?). The nice part is that your witholdings should have been automatically adjusted to take this credit into account. In essense, you’ve got more money coming in each paycheck.
My challenge to you is: what are you going to do about it? You could spend it on a cable tv upgrade, enjoy a few meals out each month, let it sit in checking, invest it, etc. There’s no “right answer”, but you should probably take a few minutes and figure out what the best use of this money will be for you. Maybe consider applying towards a credit card or auto loan debt.
Just don’t do nothing, which is what the “wicked, lazy” servant was chastised for. Enjoy the extra cash!!
Filed under: Budgeting, Saving, The Economy | Tagged: budget, cash flow, making work pay
