Category — just some bumblefucks

Do you have a car that you are thinking about donating to charity? In most instances charities will take your car whether it runs or not! And as you may know you can get a tax break for donating a car to charity, however there are steps you need to take to make sure that you get that tax donation.

Before donating a car to charity you should check out the charity; check the value of your car; and see what your responsibilities are as a donor. You can get some guidance from IRS publication 4303 or keep reading.

Select your charity

In order claim a tax deduction for donating your car to charity to be sure to that the charity is a qualified organization. Otherwise, your donation will not be tax deductible. The most common types of qualified organizations are section 501(c)(3) organizations, such as charitable, educational, or religious organizations. To verify an organization’s status call the IRS Customer Account Services division for Tax Exempt and Government Entities at (877) 829-5500 (toll-free). Have the charity’s correct name and address when you call.

Tax Deduction Qualifying

You must itemize deductions on your Schedule A of Form 1040 in order to get your charitable tax deduction. Some limitations may apply to your individual tax situation, such as your deduction cannot exceed 50% of your adjusted gross income.

Determine the Value of Your Car

You can only deduct the fair market value of your car on your taxes. This is not the same as the blue book value. The fair market value is the price a willing buyer would pay and a willing seller would accept for the car, when neither party is compelled to buy or sell. Note that you will need to obtain written acknowledgment from the charity if the total deduction you are claiming for a donated car is $250 or more. And if If the deduction you are claiming is greater than $5,000 you must get a written appraisal of your car.

Other requirements

You will need to transfer the title of your car to the charity. If you do not have your car title, do not worry. Most charities can assist you in obtaining the title for the car you are donating.

A lot of charities can also pick up or tow your car if necessary. This is typical of local charities at least. Of course, if you want to maximize the amount of money that goes to the charity then you should get the car to them yourself.

Charities take items other than just vehicles for donations. You can donate your boat, your trailer, your RV and even your motorized wheelchair or scooter.

These tips should help steer you in the right direction to donate your car to charity!

Better late than never, right? In the spirit of that, I have this to say -

Thanks to The Sun’s Financial Diary for including one of our posts in last week’s Carnival of Personal Finance.

Last week I entered one of our posts into a blog carnival. It was not a great post, so I was unsure if it would make it into the carnival.

It did not. However it was not due to the quality of the content. It’s all thanks to my idea of a clever domain name…

I’m sorry, but I can’t include you in the carnival of personal finance until you get a family friendly domain name.

Yes, it is true. Shafted due to domain name. Isn’t censorship funny? And isn’t “family friendly” much like beauty and “in the eye of the beholder?”

If you’d like a refresher course on family-friendliness, check out what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Entertainment or information is called “family friendly” if it considered suitable for the whole family. In particular it means that it is not considered harmful for children, which may imply restrictions on engagement in, or depiction of, nudity, sex, violence, horror, crude language, etc.

Consider this a shout-out to all of the children out there reading this, a personal finance blog, because kids love those.

And for the record, we harbor no hostility towards families – just giraffes and hedgehogs.

Let us not forget a few vacations we couldn’t actually afford at the time of travel. And, uh, submission fees to screenwriting contests and film festivals. Oh, and remember that short-lived period where I thought I wanted to get a higher degree in sociology? That was a thousand dollars right there. And, is it my imagination, or have we been discussing fees for some extraordinarily costly summer acting programs located in the most expensive city in the United States?

Will we bumblefuck ourselves further? Only time will tell.

It can happen many different ways. But for us, this is how it happened…

It started about 10 years ago. It was college, everyone was doing it. So, we did too. That’s right – we fell for the old “free t-shirt with credit card application” trick. (okay, actually it was all me at first, then I pulled Riley over to the dark side with me – it was more fun to have a playmate, you see) The t-shirts were not even that cool. I’d like to go on record as chalking it up to “peer pressure.”

Then you move out of state and transfer to a new college. They hit you with out of state tuition, but not to worry – they have some great “private loan lenders” that can help you with that additional cost. It sure felt like a comforting pat on the back at the time – but now I see it for what it was – a 9.25% knife in the back….five times. That is right – five “private lender” student loans.

Fast forward through more credit cards, more college transfers, three degrees between the two of us, a self-published book, a self-financed thanks to American Express indie movie and several moves including across the country and back and then pause the tape at ‘bumblefucked.’

What is bumblefucked?

Well, that is what we are right now. We spend more on transportation costs a month than we do our rent. We have a fairly new television that cost more than one month’s rent. And we were up to our eyeballs in “stuff” that we did not need. Yes, that is correct, we are well past fucked with a crazy load of debt. We are bumblefucked.

Watch us work our way backwards from bumblefucked to just fucked to bumble, or bum, or something like that.