Flea Market Day was a success! I made over $200 and got rid of a bunch of stuff. It was also fun talking to people, haggling, and seeing them get excited about my junk. Maybe I’ll be back in a few years after accumulating too much stuff again.

My 2021 federal & state tax returns are filed. After 3 days of staring at spreadsheets I was mentally done as well. I spent the rest of the day in bed watching movies. Tomorrow I might go for a hike before prepping for a last minute vending & live painting event on Wednesday. It’s at a weed store on 4/20 so it should be interesting!

I’m still preparing my taxes. All my income & expenses are in order and I’ve started plugging numbers into TurboTax. Tomorrow is the deadline and, I think, I have until midnight to file. Hopefully it won’t take me that long.

I spent most of the day reviewing self employment expenses & income. I want to make sure my records are bulletproof before I plug any data into TurboTax. I wish I had done this part sooner.

Today I started pulling documents for tax prep and reading my notes from last year. Tomorrow I’m going to review all my business expenses and income and maybe start plugging away at Turbo Tax.

After two and half months of constantly calling Covered California (Obamacare), Medi-Cal (Medi-Care), and Kaiser Permanent, after an error caused me to lose my Premium Tax Credits and pay full price on my monthly health insurance premiums, I finally got confirmation that my money was refunded and my PTC were retroactively applied. It was a huge pain in the ass because no one new what caused me to lose my PTC, and once that was fixed there were more hoops to jump through in order to get my money back. I hope I never have to go through that again.

Today I worked on the sponsorship packet design for Local Color's 31 Skulls fundraising campaign. This was a first for me. I've seen them before and recently learned more about them. Organizations use them for fundraising. They have different levels based on contribution amount, each with different perks for those who choose to sponsor events. I had a little involvement with the actual content of the packet but I handled all the design. I did have to look at a few examples to get an idea of what to do. I'm waiting on the team at Local Color to get back to me with edits and to finish writing out all the content before the board members start sending them out to potential sponsors.  I hope this makes us lots of money!

Monday was tax day. It got extended from April 14th because of covid. I still waited till the last day to file. This was my third year reporting self-employed income and even though the preparation has gotten easier after streamlining my record keeping process, it still sucks a load of ass. I took lots of notes and screenshots as I filled out the Turbotax forms to make it easier for next year but I might start paying someone else to do my taxes.

It sounds like an organization of trained & certified cats you can hire to do your taxes. In actuality it's an abbreviation for Tax Categories and I spent most of Sunday making sure I properly categorized every transaction I made in 2020. Monday is tax day and I'm glad I'm almost done. 

It’s that time again. Today I logged onto TurboTax and began the process. I think this will be my 3rd year doing the self-employed version. It’s gotten easier every year but it still feels like a huge chore while I’m doing it and an accomplishment once I’m done. This year I’m going to document the whole process and create a “how-to” guide for next year. I’m constantly updating how I keep records to make filing faster and more efficient .

It's that time again. Time to pay the state and federal government their cut of my money. First I'm going to pay California's sales & use tax then I'm getting on Turbo Tax to file my income tax. It aint much. After covid, every event was canceled and I barely made any sales in 2020.

The day started off with an early morning hike at Grant Park with my friend Martine. I was already running late due to phone issues then I was stuck behind a slow moving fire truck for miles going up the narrow winding road leading to the park. Then the hike was cut short after realizing I’d made a wrong turn and we were headed backwards. After coming home, a little disappointed in myself, I showered and got ready to go shopping. I went to the new Costco Business Center near the house, Office Depot across town, a regular Costco, then to the Safeway back home. I had about half a cart full of groceries and was next in line at the check out stand when I noticed the guy behind me only was buying a single bouquet of flowers so I let him go in front of me. After he paid for his flowers and left I loaded my items on the conveyer and walked up the cashier who said the guy had given her $20 to pay for part of my groceries. How cool was that? And as an added bonus I received an additional $10 discount at the register. What an awesome way to end a long day.

The computer head was how I felt after working on that CD layout job on the puter all day yesterday.

This morning I received a text from a groom whose wedding I DJ'd two years ago. He said every time he heard a song from the wedding he was reminded that he forgot to tip me. He Venmo'd me a very nice tip and totally made my day. It also inspired my Inktober drawing for Day 22

I thought I was going to pay taxes for 2019 so I set aside some money. Instead, I got a refund so now I have a little extra spending money to put towards my business. Tonight I pulled the trigger on a couple pricey items that I'd been thinking about buying for quite some time. The 1st item is a new 27" monitor to connect my 15" laptop to. I need the extra real estate to work comfortably in Adobe Illustrator and other apps. I'll share details about the 2nd item later. It's something I've wanted to buy for a few years and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I can't wait to share it with everyone.

I started calculating my self employed income & deductible expenses in late December then paid my Sales & Use Tax at the end of January. I then started doing my state & federal income taxes in early February to give myself plenty of time before the April 15 due date. Soon after, the Covid-19 pandemic hit and the tax deadline was postponed till July 15th, which is 4 days away. Tonight I tried picking up where I left off 4 months ago. I spent most of the time reviewing the work I already did, going over old notes and taking a bunch of new notes. I was a little overwhelmed at first but ended the night feeling confident about what to do next and preparing to make future tax filings easier.

I spent this morning reading over the EDD website (California's unemployment dept) to learn more about filing an unemployment insurance claim. I've already lost 3 DJing gig and 2 vending events due to coronavirus concerns so I figured it was time to file. After reading all the info, I called EDD and the recording said they were experiencing large volumes of calls and I wouldn't be able to file over the phone and to use the website instead. Doing it online took me a while and don't think I filled it out correctly. I'm really hoping someone calls me back. While I was on the EDD website I couldn't find "Mobile DJ" as a work-type, but saw that "Ritual Circumciser" was. Weird. After filing with what EDD I called my bank to discuss my car loan. I also called my credit card company, my health insurance provider, Covered California and my auto insurance provider. Since all events are canceled I'm not going to have much, maybe not any, income for a few months. Every person I spoke to was very helpful and understanding of the situation. Hopefully things get better soon and it's safe to go to events and things go back to normal. If not I might need to start a new side hustle performing ritual circumcisions.

Not really a problem, just more work. I earned more business income this year doing murals/painting, graphic design and t-shirt sales compared to last year just doing t-shirts. Now that I'm preparing my taxes I have to figure out the income and expenses for each type of work. I wasn't fully prepared for this so I've spent the last couple days going over all of my 2019 business transactions again, making sure I have all the data I need to calculate everything. Going forward I'll need to take even better notes on all business transactions for 2020. 

I am tired of staring at spreadsheets. The whole reason I started doing this now, instead of waiting till February, is because of Covered California. I have to update my information before the end of the year so I can continue getting healthcare coverage. I went and figured out how much money I made from DJing, t-shirts, murals and graphic design work. Then figured out my business expenses and how much I can deduct. Once I got those numbers I went to the Covered California website but kept getting stuck. I spent a couple hours trying to figure it out till I got frustrated and decided I'll just give them a call on Monday. At least when this is all said & done filing taxes should be a breeze.

I was almost done logging all my 2019 transactions. All my spending was done but now I'm working on logging all income. Every dollar made in 2019 from DJing, t-shirt sales & side jobs are being consolidated into one doc. I'm figuring out as I go what are the best ways to log things like fees & sales tax so it's taking a bit of time. Once this is done I'll have a complete picture where all my money went, and came from, in  2019.

Today I finished going thru all my credit card transactions from 2019, till now, and made sure they were all properly logged and categorized on a separate spreadsheet. After every purchase, I'd log the date, dollar amount, who I paid, how I paid, category, and notes on the doc. A lot of damn work. I made a Google Form and saved the link on my phone to make it easier. I mostly pay everything with credit card so this took me a very long time to go thru. I've already logged my business debit & checking transactions, all I have to do is go thru my personal checking transactions and make sure they're all been entered properly. Once I'm done I can start figuring out what's tax deductible and have a head start when I file taxes.

I'm going through all my credit card transactions from 2019 and making sure I log which ones where for personal use and which ones were business expenses. I've covered 7 months of transactions so far.  I hate seeing how much money I've wasted on fast food and interest fees. I gotta be better about those things. I need to eat at home more (also good for my health) and make more money to pay off my credit card debt. Those are two good resolutions for 2020. I've also decided it's time to open a business credit card. Going thru all these transactions and figuring out which ones were personal and which ones were business takes way too much time.