income tax Archives - Our Bill Pickle

Maternity leave in Canada: 6 tips to help you prepare

September 30, 2021

Planning to take maternity leave in Canada? Here are six simple steps you can take to prepare your finances.

Before getting pregnant, I knew very little about maternity leave in Canada.

I knew I would be eligible and that I would receive less money…and that was about it.

Of course, my lack of knowledge about the ins and outs of maternity leave in Canada makes sense. Before having a baby, I didn’t have a reason to have experience with the program.

That changed as soon as I found out we were expecting. Understanding how having a baby would impact our finances was important to me from the start.

Today, I’m sharing a snapshot of what I learned, my experience with maternity and parental leave in Canada so far and a few tips based on my experience.

Should you do your own taxes? Three things to consider

February 18, 2021

Should you do your taxes yourself or take them to a professional? Here are some things to consider when it comes to doing your own taxes.

I’m a big fan of doing your own taxes but that wasn’t always the case.

For several years, the idea felt daunting. The way I saw it, the existence of professional tax prep services suggested it was not a job for a novice, especially one with so little experience taking care of “adult” business.

So, for years, I gathered my documents and handed them over to someone else to deal with.

And for years, it worked out just fine.

But over time, I started to question my assumption about filing taxes. As I got older, I started to wonder: is it really that difficult a process?

I decided to find out. We picked up Turbo Tax at the grocery store and I set to work preparing our tax returns.

I’ve been doing our taxes myself ever since.

But what about you? Should you be doing your taxes yourself or taking them to a professional?

Here are some things to consider when it comes to making decisions about doing your own taxes.

Exactly what we did with our tax refund this year

April 7, 2020

How we spent our tax refund this year (instead of paying back debt)

How should we spend our tax refund this year? It’s a question I find myself asking every spring as I finish keying in our slips and receipts and prepare to netfile.

It’s nerdy, but I really enjoy doing our taxes. I started doing ours three years ago and while there was a small learning curve, I’m glad I took the time to work through it. I still have to look things up sometimes, but for the most part, I feel pretty confident filing our taxes on my own.

But let’s be honest: my favourite part of doing my taxes is spending the refund.

Here’s how we spent our 2019 refund.

Four great reasons to start preparing for tax season now

February 20, 2020

Four reasons to start preparing for tax season right now

Preparing for tax season is always top of mind for me by the time February arrives.

It may sound nerdy, but I love tax season. It’s not just because we have always received refunds, either (although I can’t lie: that’s a big plus).

Tax preparation, to me, is all about organization. And heaven knows I love a good organization task.

Are you thinking about your taxes yet? If not — might I suggest that you should be?

When it comes to filing your taxes, I really do believe being prepared is important. Here are some benefits I see to starting to prepare for tax season now.

My SimpleTax review: Is this Canada’s most user-friendly tax software?

March 12, 2019

SimpleTax is Canada's most user-friendly tax software. In this review, I share the things I think make SimpleTax so great.

This is my review of SimpleTax. Or, as I like to call it, Canada’s most user-friendly tax software.

No joke.

Learning to do my own taxes felt like a major “adult” milestone. I’ve been working since I was 15 years old, but for many years, I relied on others to take care of this for me.

There’s nothing wrong with this approach. You don’t have to do your taxes yourself if you don’t want to — and if you don’t feel comfortable doing them yourself, you shouldn’t.

But I wanted to learn.

The first time I filed my taxes myself, I used TurboTax. It went OK. The program was a little glitchy on my computer, but it got the job done.

It did make me wonder if there were other options, though. So I did what any millennial in my situation would do.

I Googled it.

That’s how I found SimpleTax. After reading a few reviews, I decided to give it a try.

Spoiler alert: it totally lives up to the name.

Disclaimer: not sponsored. I mean, I wish, but this is just my opinion based on my experience using SimpleTax. I’m not being compensated to write this. I really just love the software.