I always just do mine on TurboTax online; they can import all your info from previous years if you've done it through them before and it makes it super easy mode.

Because I don't earn very much, I usually get in the ballpark of $1200 back. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. When I lived in Montana we had state taxes and I would get a couple hundred of that back, as well; here in Washington we don't have those (and have things like sales tax instead )

But yeah if you're me, and have my awful luck, the money doesn't go very far because some emergency will happen or work will suddenly cut my hours by half for a couple months or something and then byebye tax refund! But I guess it's much better to have that cushion there when those emergencies happen, than to not have it there.