Are you sure you have your tax withholding set up right? After that heinous premium and 4 exemptions, there really shouldn't be much to tax. Throw in the child tax credit (x2), and your tax burden should be pretty much just the 7% or so from FICA. So a total of about 22% reduction from gross to take home.
But you are right, either way this is not a comfortable position to be in. You are not in the poor house, but stretched pretty thin. As silly as it sounds, you would be better off if your husband had a job, everything else equal, with no health coverage.
No, I'm not sure at all. It's possible we have it set for zero exemptions. We got bit once when we first started out with a huge tax bill by claiming the "correct" (at that time 2) number of exemptions. So we've given the government a lot of no interest loans by always putting zero on the W4. Ok, scratch the "not sure it's correct" and change that to nearly certain it's wrong. I don't want to adjust it incorrectly and get a huge bill next April. We always seem to owe state tax to the tune of ~$500 with it set at zero exemptions (Missouri). I don't understand that at all. We owed the state $240 last year but got a large federal return.
Maybe you could help?
1 week snapshot for DH (he is paid weekly and we don't get pay stubs). I can get more information if it's needed to figure it out. Family of four.
~$690 gross
~$100 health insurance
$461.76 take home (should be around $607 from your calculation)
I will have 6 months of salary this year. I think I'm also at zero exemptions.
$2083.33 gross/month
$1706.05 net/month (I think they take out $100 for parking from this somewhere)
If we had the 22% reduction you mentioned, we'd have $700 extra per month in take home. At a 28% reduction to account for state taxes (and I don't understand Missouri taxes at all) we'd have an extra $150 per month.
Our business is set to pay $750 in take home per month (with plenty left over for taxes...that part is calculated by our business accountant. We have $1250 in profit to pay out $750 in payroll...rest set aside for taxes). This will start probably in July after my 6-month contract ends. Adjusting mine won't help since I have only one paycheck left at the end of June.
Should we change our W4s? I'm nervous about putting them to 4 exemptions. I'd hate to get hit with a $2k plus tax bill (either state or federal or combined) come next April.