Hellobee Boards

Yep! I get paid every other Friday and the money comes out then. Then the following Tuesday I get the money back in my account since I turn in invoices each month so I never have enough balance to pay an invoice in full.

Yes, absolutely!! We take advantage from both my husband and my employers... it is pre-tax money. Since it's automatically deducted from our paychecks, we budget as if we don't even have that money. When we get the claim checks, it feels like such a bonus.

Yes; it's a must! Saves us like $1500 a year (or maybe it was $1700, I can't remember!)

I don't think it's a PITA, but I don't make weekly withdrawals from the account either. It's taken out of my check every 2 weeks, goes into the account and then at the end of the year I have $5k chillin' and waiting there for me.

So worth it for the tax benefit. I can't remember what it is that we save, but it is even more worth it because like a 401k, my company matches $.25 on the dollar that I contribute...so I can contribute $4000 pre tax and I end up with $5000 in the account.

@matador84: You didn't misunderstand, it is $5k annually per family. So we still hit the cap at the $5k max. My husband handles all this stuff so I'm not very well versed in it either. I'll need to ask him why he thought we should both contribute versus just having one of us do it.

@matador84: have you ever had an FSA account? It's just like that!

J starts daycare in August (!!), so we will enroll starting January.

@matador84: I'm a little confused by being allowed to do $6,000 with two children in dependent care flex. I thought the IRS limit was $5,000 per family regardless of number of children. I know the 1040 deduction (or credit, I forget which) is $3,000 per child, which can only be taken if you don't do the flex benefit. So if you have two children and do flex, you can actually claim $1,000 (6,000-5,000). Or at least that's my understanding.

We use it. The most challenging part is to get the school's finance office to send us the forms that are required...they need to be signed off by the principal.

@matador84: That's for the childcare expenses tax credit on your taxes. That's different from a dependent care account, which is a type of flexible spending account. The IRS limit is $5,000 per year, regardless of # of children for the dependent care account. You can take either the tax credit, or use the dependent care flex spending account.

This article is a pretty good one on how the two options work:

http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/personalfinance/lifeevents/benefits/dependentFSAs.php

I do and I do think it's kind of a pain because you can't withdraw the money until you put it in there first. We pay DS's tuition monthly, so for January and February, we had to "double" pay because we had to pay daycare out of pocket up front since the balance was $0. By the end of January, I still didn't have enough the account to cover January's tuition to be reimbursed so I had to wait till Feb. 15th paycheck. By then, I've already paid daycare twice. When I withrdaw the money, the account goes down below monthly tuition and I have to wait awhile for it to replenish. Rinse and repeat.

Yes! I get $96 taken out of my check every Friday (I get paid weekly.) for me, I usually only take it out every couple months once it builds up. We are actually planning on not touching it until December, to use it (fingers crossed) if I get pregnant soon and have a baby next spring.

@Stacy: I think I am going to do this next year! That $5K will be nice to get

@Smurfette: When we get our reimbursement it's like a nice little bonus.

@littlek: @Smurfette: us too! Daycare is expensive in our area and we go through $5000 in 3.5 months.

@matador84: @Smurfette: So I talked to DH, and actually we're just doing the dependent care through his work not mine like I thought.

I wish they would not only raise the limit, but do something like $5k PER CHILD, rather than just $5k total. Or do a percentage of daycare costs instead of a flat $5k since daycare costs vary so much across the country.

@matador84: My company's enrollment period already ended, but I'm going to sign up in Decemeber for next year. I found an online calculator and we'd save $1600/year!

@yoursilverlining: Actually, I believe after working through the form that you can do both (sort of). If you have two or more dependents which would be $6,000 and you do the $5,000 dependent care FSA you would be eligible potentially for $1,000 credit.

But, yes this is certainly different than having $6,000 allowed in a dependent care FSA.