Hey, Dirty. Baby I got your money

Well actually, as it turns out the IRS will still have my money for another couple of weeks. I checked the ol' checking account today, and no stimulus payment. According to the original schedule I should have had my money by now, not even considering the acceleration period. So I went searching for info.

The IRS has a "where's my money" link. So I went there, and they had no information. It actually said "we have no information to give you." What?!? How can a schedule program not work when I give you all of the correct information. Nonetheless, I was not to be thwarted. I also saw a contact us link So i looked up the 1800 number and dialed away. I mean, it did say "Live assistance available from 7AM to 10PM local time."

I got stuck in an automated system. I figured I'd still give it a try and see if this schedule program could tell me where my money was. To no avail, though. It also said that it had no information to share. Bummer. I redialed the number thinking that there would be some option to talk to someone. There wasn't.

I got transferred to their stimulus "hotline". No option to talk to someone. Oh yeah, and if you hit zero too many times, they'll hang up on you. But finally I reached the end of my rope. I just didn't type any numbers, thinking that I would confuse the system and it would let me talk to someone since the system would think that I didn't know how to operate a touch tone phone, even though I called on one. Instead it went to an voice automated system. Aaarrrggggghhhh! As I was about to give up, I shouted, "I just want to talk to someone!"

And miraculously it was so. I had been transferred to a real live person.

I asked the gentleman where my money was, and told him that he would have to start paying me points on the vig if he were to keep my money any longer. He asked me what the last two of my social was, and I told him 00. He asked if I direct deposited my refund. I told him I had. He then wondered why I had not gotten my money, and promised to pay points on the vig if I did not get it rapido. Well not really. Instead he asked me for my entire social, I gave it to him, and also told him I filed through HR blocks online website for Direct Deposit.

He asked me if I paid for the HR Block services with my refund, and I said yes.

He then went on to inform me that this would cause me to receive a paper check. "Wait, I filed electronically. Hell, I even filled out the form electronically. I paid for the services electronically. I even had the refund applied electronically. Not once did I pick up a pen and paper anywhere in this transaction."

I saved 200 trees by my estimation.

"And you are telling me that I get a paper stimulus check?" "Yes." He replied. I thanked him and told him he had done a very good job, which he had. I now no longer have to wonder why a coworker got their stimulus check on a Sunday?!?!?!?!?!?!?! and can now wait another 3-4 weeks for my stimulus check to come in the mail, go down to my local bank branch which I have done I think only twice this year anyway, and talk to a local teller and have her deposit my money.

Thanks IRS for wasting my time by not running the last leg of the race with a bionic, electronic leg.

Although, I am able to help people out. If you too want to talk to a real live IRS person, call 1-800-840-1040 (haha) and hit 1 to speak in english or ocho to speak in spanish, 7 to get transferred to the stimulus help line, do not hit any buttons so that it switches to the voice prompt instead of the touch tone, and whine, "All i want to do is talk to someone." This worked for me.

basicsavings

w00t! The second automatic deposit into our ING savings account today. We now have a whole $250 in our savings. This is by far the most we have ever had in our savings outside of bonus time. Go us!

How debt can affect you

I've paid for this twice already has a very interesting post on why debt stinks. I completely agree with the article, and I've been thinking about the same thing recently.

While we are still keeping our heads in the sand with respect to our debt since e don't have any active credit cards, the concept still applies to the basicfinancial. I get profit sharing with my job, and it is a sizable amount of cash to get at one time. I have never gotten more than I have at once then even my smallest profit sharing my first year. And until this year, it has always meant something fun and something big. While this year we still did use enough of it for fun items like renovating our new houses office, and a couple of other fun items, most of it went towards getting caught up on bills since we had yet to come completely above water from our wedding 6 months prior. That was a massive amount of money and while we were still able to pull it off, it hurt us for quite some time (about 6 months).

But even with can recycling, birthday checks (although those still mostly go to something fun), all of our "extra money" has been going towards bills, and now towards some semblance of an emergency fund. No new computer, or at least computer parts, no new TVs. Just boring financial security. It's tough talking yourself out of spending $20 on some new headphones, or getting a new ipod case, or some other, even inexpensive, item.