Thursday, January 22, 2004

Well, this month has flown past! I've been busy getting my taxes together and will be ready to send them off to my accountant by the first of Feb. It always seems like I get the last of my info from banks, etc the first day of Feb, so I can't send off my taxes til after that.
Accountants are usually not very busy through Feb, so ours can get our taxes done very quickly and I can then file the FAFSA for each of our girls by mid Feb beating the March 1st deadline by a couple of weeks.
We found that it is best to file the FAFSA after getting taxes done---a correct FAFSA was far better than one done on estimations. The year we estimated, we had to make lots of corrections after taxes were done. This flagged us for an audit on our FAFSA and was a continual headache for months. We were forever having to find some papers to send in for validation. Eventually, we did get it all straightened out and our daughter got the funding she needed, but it is far easier to do it correctly the first time and not have to go through the mess of validation!
I have more tips and hints for filing your FAFSA in the Money section of my notebook. Come visit at www.homeschool2college.com

Linda Weaver

Thursday, January 01, 2004

Happy New Year to all!

Wow, 2003 sure went by in a hurry and now we have a new year to work with!
If you have a Senior that will be graduating this spring and heading to college in the fall, now is the time to begin working on her financial aid for school. Financial aid begins with filing your FAFSA. This must be done as soon as possible after Jan lst. We have found that it is best to file it after we get our taxes done, so during Jan, I work hard at getting all my tax stuff together so that we can get our taxes done during the first week of Feb and file our FAFSA by mid Feb. I have lots of tips and suggestions about filing this form in Money section of my notebook. Please be sure to check it out at
www.homeschool2college.com.
Have a great day,
Linda Weaver