I had to ship my son off to grandma’s for the day and refuse lunch with my husband, but I did it. . . and with 10 extra days to boot. Yes folks, the taxes are finished! And the “tax goddess’ is feeling good (even better since we are actually getting a little something back this year).

I finally got tired of gathering all our information (the most difficult thing about tax time) and sitting across a desk in silence while a tax prep person input numbers into a computer just to hit us with a hefty bill. So this year I bought the H&R Block tax software for $35.00 and did it myself.

After I had all my forms and figures in order, the program walked me through the process of inputting income, expenses, deductions and so forth. It really was easy to use, and I would recommend it to anyone needing a quick virtual accountant before April 15. Users can save their work, back up and redo anything along the way. When you are finished calculating the hopefully huge return you will be getting, you can choose to e-file or print out a paper version to send via the mail.

I purchased the federal and state version of the software and chose the H&R Block program only because it was $20.00 cheaper than its competitor, but I had to pay an additional $19.99 online to e-file my state return (although you can choose to pay nothing extra and just mail in your state forms). In the end, it probably would have been equal for me in terms of price; but I have to tell you, it was a lot cheaper than our accountant. . . and did I mention, we are actually getting something back this year!