January 21, 2024

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Good day.

Last year, the average American got a tax refund of about $2,750 — a 9% drop from the 2022 average as some pandemic-era tax credits went away. Can you guess what portion of tax filers receive a refund? A. 50% B. 75% C. 90%

Here are the topics for today:

Is It Possible to File My Taxes For Free?
What Is an Anti-Budget?
How and When to Use a Balance Transfer to Your Advantage

TAXES

Is It Possible to File My Taxes For Free?

It's estimated that Americans spend about $240 and 13 hours on average just to prepare and file one tax return. Taxes are enough of a burden as it is, and spending even more money and labor to get them filed is the last thing we want to do.

Luckily, many Americans actually qualify to file their taxes for free — In fact, the IRS estimates that in 2022, 70% were eligible for its free-file program, but just 2% used it.

Before you pay — check these resources

IRS Free File: Taxpayers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $79,000 in 2023 or less are eligible to use the IRS's free file tool online, which enables you to file federal and some state returns.
IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program provides free tax help to individuals and families who make $60,000 or less, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and limited English-speaking taxpayers who need assistance in preparing their own tax returns. Follow this link to find a location near you.
IRS Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) offers free tax help to individuals who are age 60 or older. Cooperative grant agreements are entered into between the IRS and eligible organizations to provide tax assistance to elderly taxpayers. See current sponsors by state.
Other free programs offered by popular services: Like them or lump them, big names like TurboTax, H&R Block, and others usually offer some form of free filing for those who qualify, usually for the most basic type of tax returns. Unfortunately though, if you invested at all or made any self-employment income, you're usually disqualified.
The best option of the bunch — file with Origin: For just $12.99 a month, you'll get access to a holistic money management tool that not only includes tax filing for all tax scenarios, but also net worth tracking, Origin invest, credit score monitoring, budgeting, personalized tips, and more. You can also get started with a 30-day free trial right here.

BUDGETING & SAVING

What Is an Anti-Budget?

Budgeting is a controversial topic in many households. It's often the case that if one person enjoys crafting an intricate plan for their money, the other will loathe the structure and organization of it.

But at the end of the day, we all need to budget, and fortunately, there are a lot of different ways to do it — even for those who loathe it.

Let's zoom in on the "anti-budget," an approach that can accommodate budget begrudgers quite nicely.

An anti-budget is exactly what it sounds like

Instead of creating a detailed list of line items with corresponding expenses and tagging each to an appropriate bucket (i.e., housing, food, transportation, etc.), you'd simply account for paying yourself first (i.e., emergency savings, retirement, other savings), paying your bills, and then doing as you please with the money that's leftover.

The idea is that this approach reduces the amount of time it takes to create a budget by eliminating lots of categorization, itemizing, saving of receipts, and probably a lot of unnecessary analysis too.

But let's be straight about this — an anti-budget is still a budget, it's just a highly relaxed variety.

What to know when creating one

Know your income: Even if your income isn't the steadiest, try to approximate, on average, what you'll take home after taxes during most months. This gives you a starting point.
Know your expenses: An anti-budget doesn't give you an excuse to let expenses get swept under the rug, forgotten and unaccounted for. So yes, add the cost of that subscription you forgot about to the total. After you've got a hold of your total monthly expenses, you can subtract this from your income to see what's left.
Set a savings goal (i.e., paying yourself): Beyond the basic recommendations of saving 20% and investing 15% for retirement, you'll have to adjust those percentages to your situation and preferences. If you don't have 35% to contribute to these right now, adjust down and focus on creating more income. If you have a lot of excess income, maybe bump those numbers up.
The idea here is to focus on the big wins, like saving & investing a big chunk of your income versus nit-picking on the small expenses that drive some people crazy. If you're meeting those big savings goals, why should buying a latte at Starbucks even matter?

⚡️ Top tip: Your Origin app makes budgeting easy. From your dashboard, head to the "Spending" section for a snapshot of your expenses this month, including a breakdown by category.

CREDIT CARDS

How and When to Use a Balance Transfer to Your Advantage

Credit card debt has risen precipitously as of late as Americans struggle to keep up with the rising costs of living — a trend that will no doubt prove burdensome to the budgets of many this year.

When this kind of high-interest debt starts to add up, it's best to attack it promptly and efficiently with a detailed plan. While it's never an easy task, we know that the hardest part is getting started.

And luckily, there's one strategic move that can assist us with this — a balance transfer.

What to know about balance transfers

A balance transfer is exactly what it sounds like — transferring the balance from one credit card to another. Usually, the appeal of doing so comes in the form of the other card offering a lower interest rate, which both saves money and grants you some extra time to pay it off.
Taking advantage of a balance transfer often involves opening a new credit card, as there are a lot of new cardholder offers out there that include a 0% introductory APR period. If you've got your credit profile under control, opening a new account should help more often than it hurts.
If used responsibly, the only downside should be a slight drag on your average age of account, while the upsides are little to no interest, more time to repay your debt, and an increased overall credit limit, thus lowering your utilization rate.
A balance transfer can be a big help to those with a credit card balance. What's important though is that this is done in a calculated, responsible manner. You're using this to avoid paying interest, not to be able to take on more debt.

🌊 BY THE WAY

🧾 Answer: It's B., 75%. The vast majority (about 3 quarters) of Americans receive a tax refund every year. Make sure to maximize it with Origin.
🛒 Get your quarters ready, Aldi is here to stay (Axios)
👨🏻‍🔧 Remote workers get promoted less often (Fortune)
🚘 Gen Z isn't a fan of online car buying (CNBC)

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