It may finally be time to truly look into solar power.  I have been intrigued by the possibility of adding solar power to my house, especially since my home has the ability to have solar on the roof without taking away from the appearance of the home.

The problem with solar is the cost involved in purchasing panels and the equipment necessary to convert their electricity into usable home electricity.  There is now a tax credit with no cap that will allow you to recover 30% of your investment into solar and wind upgrades to your home.  If you are wondering a tax credit means that you get that amount taken off of your taxes not deducted from your income.  So if you had to pay $2000 in taxes and got a $3000 tax credit you would receive $1000 back from the government.

If you want to know how many watts you will need to replace a part (or all) of your energy needs I found a couple of really good calculators.  The first is for Off Grid solar power where you don’t use electricity from the power company at all and the other is for a Grid Tie system where you are able to use both solar and regular electricity.

Can the government do anything without making it confusing? The economic stimulus package has been passed and I spent a few hours trying to figure out what the heck was going on. I finally figured it out thanks to some help from Clark Howard. Clark is a radio host who spends three hours a day on the air talking about consumer issues. He did a service to us all by breaking down how the stimulus payments are going to work. One quick note. If you or someone you know does not usually file their income tax because they do not make any money, make sure that a return is filed this year. If you do not file then you will not receive a payment. Here are the links from Clark’s site:

Married with Childern

Married no Children

Single with Children

Single no Children

All State Farm customers can file their tax return for free using Turbo Tax. I have just started the process and it has been a breeze so far. The first step is to go to State Farm’s website and setup your online account. You will need to have your policy number to get this done. It took them about 12 hours to approve my account. When that was finished they sent me an email to let me know the account was ready. When you login to your State Farm account there is a set of links on the left hand side. Just click on FREE tax filing and you will be taken to the Intuit (Turbo Tax) website. Now instead of just having basic tax preparation be free you can also use the Deluxe version for free. This also includes a free e-file of your federal taxes.

The only downside to all the programs is that they charge you an arm and a leg for the state filing software.  The rationale makes sense, since they have to do programming for each state which is much more expensive than a single federal system.  I have had no problems with either Turbo Tax or Tax Cut and have used both interchangeably throughout the years.  I have gone to the online version of Turbo Tax because it is less expensive and now with State Farm fitting the bill the price has dropped dramatically.  This will be the first year that my mortgage interest will play a roll in my deductions and the first year that I have pre-paid none of my income tax.  As soon as I am done with my taxes I will let you know how all of this goes.