Is overtime worth it?

[Scrub175]

Two points to ponder...

There is diminishing returns on working OT but still nice to have the extra scratch.

Two if you don't have a significant other and don't mind the impact to your work life balance then some OT would be a good thing. If in a marriage or family you should find a mutually agreeable work life balance with your significant other, based of career and family goals. It is important to provide for your family but to be there for them as well. Marriages built on the premise of the man as the provider only will not last as long as a more progressive family model of dual income, dual responsibility. If you work to much and are simply home to sleep and eat then go back to work, you truly are not providing the guidance and leadership of the home. That's the age old arguement of simply being pay check for your family. You should demand more out of family life than that. I wish I would have...

 

[samiwas]

Thank you for the awesome replies guys you guys hit the nail on the head. Now I have a question with going exempt for a month and also number of allowances on your w-4.

Allowances: I'm a single male, I want to keep as much money as possible on every pay check and I also don't want to get a tax return at the end of the year. How do I go about that?

Exempt: Going exempt for the month only applies to federal tax? What about California and SDI and other stuff? Is it wise to go exempt for a month or two throughout the year?

As others have said, everyone's situation is different. Some people like to put on a ton of allowances and get the most money now so they're not "giving the government an interest free loan", and pay back later. Others like to claim few allowances, and have more money taken out, and get that money back later.

I claim zero deductions/allowances and register as "married but withhold at the higher single rate" and with large employers I have extra withheld. I do this because my income is a mixture of W-2 and 1099 income. The 1099 income is taxed higher with the self-employment tax. In order to help combat that, I have the most taxes possible withheld out of all my W2 income. At the end of the year, instead of getting a huge bill for the 1099 stuff (or dealing with quarterly payments), I nearly break even. Last year, I actually got a small refund, which hasn't happened in many years (usually pay thousands).

Obviously, the best thing to do is figure out what it takes to break even at the end of the year. More than likely, a single guy making a typical wage should just claim the standard deduction.