The income giveth, the taxes taketh away :(

We were doing so well early this year. My husband began receiving Social Security, and became eligible for Medicare medical-expense coverage. In addition, he has more tax and accounting clients than he's ever had in his life, which is quite ironic, since he's now officially old enough to retire.

Then came the tax bill.

We haven't had a tax bill this high in years.

So, for lack of a better alternative, my husband gave it all back. Effective this month, almost exactly the same amount that he's getting in Social Security is now being withheld from his government-retiree pension to pay the taxes due April 15, 2009.

Despite a substantial increase in my husband's gross income, we are now living on almost exactly the same net income that we had six months ago.

I can't complain that we're not still in better shape than the many folks currently job-hunting, not to mention the many folks without health coverage in this country. But I also can't deny being rather depressed that our net income has now dropped by considerably more than a couple hundred dollars a month.