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 Saturday night and they're due on Monday. I'm almost done, I think. Just a few more things I gotta plug in, like payment card processing fees & miscellaneous expenses. I can't wait to be done.

I saw my doctor today for a checkup and to go over my lab results. (that bruise on my arm in the picture below is where they drew blood a couple days ago) Aside from being overweight and slightly high blood pressure my doctor said my test results look really good. Better numbers than most people coming back for doctor visits after the covid shutdown. I was pleasantly surprised. I thought they were going to be bad, especially since I'm currently about 10 lbs over what I usually weigh this time of year. There's still plenty work I need to do health wise but I left my doctor's office feeling good. I wanted to treat myself so I visited my local comic shop, Legends, inside Eastridge Mall, and picked up a bunch of $1 comics. All of them are new but they're reprints of old books. After returning home I got ready and went on a hike at Alum Rock Park. I did all of the Penitencia Creek Trail, almost 6 miles, then came home and did some more work on my taxes. I have this weekend to finish as tax day is this coming Monday.

434.1This afternoon I went and bought a heavy-duty speaker stand for my single QSC K10 speaker and a couple 1/4" to XLR cables. I'd been using my work's DJ equipment all these years and now that I'm buying stuff for myself I'm reminded of how expensive everything is. Later, after practicing some mixing, I started tinkering with my bikes rear brakes and I think I fixed them. They weren't tight enough before. Now I gotta figure out why my front brakes squeak when I slow down or come to a stop. Tonight I finally went back to working on my taxes. I added up all the miles I'd driven in for business purposes in 2020 and it was 434.1.

I took my bike for a test ride down the street today. A rode for few blocks and noticed the front derailleur wasn't letting my shift into the high gear. I watched a couple Youtube videos when I got home to try and troubleshoot and fix it but decided I'll take the bike back to Good Karma Bikes tomorrow so they can do it and/or show me how. I then spent most of the day working on creating a new resume from scratch. My old resumes were never that good so I wanted to do a complete overhaul. I took a break from the resume to enter the mileage I logged for the Casitas US map mural project into my newly updated spreadsheet, made to make next years tax preparation a little easier.

I got my second vaccine shot this afternoon and got a nifty button! I didn’t experience any side effects either. I’m looking forward to hanging out with my fully vaxxed friends & family in a few weeks after the vaccine has taken full effect.

The tax prep is still dragging along nicely. I did a bit of work tonight. Mostly reworking the forms & spreadsheets I use to keep records. I do my best to log everything but I’m constantly trying to improve & streamline the whole bookkeeping & tax preparation process.

Happy Star Wars Day!

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.

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.

After hours & hours & hours & hours & hours preparing, I finally filed my taxes this evening. One day before the extended deadline. I was stoked to finally finish and learn I'm receiving a refund. The last few years I've had to pay the federal government so I'm happy to finally get some money back. After filing I celebrated with a short hike up to Eagle Rock at Alum Rock Park. 

I made a lot of progress yesterday & today preparing my taxes. I got all my 2019 business expenses categorized and entered into Turbotax. It's even showing me, as of right now, that I'm expected to receive a federal refund. It's been a few years since I've gotten money back from the Uncle Sam and that got me excited.

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 drew this the other day. I wasn't crazy about it at first but now it's kinda growing on me. I didn't draw or do anything creative today. Instead I spent a good chunk of the day figuring out approximately how many miles I drove in 2019 for business purposes. The number I came up with was 1,586.5 miles.

I didn't do a good of tracking business related mileage last year. I downloaded a mileage tracker on my phone last year and never really checked it till this weekend. There are probably thousands of trips logged on the app and it just gives me the addresses at every stop. I have to click each address and zoom in to figure out the locations. I reviewed a bunch of trips today from 2019 and figured it would take me days to go thru all of them so I went and did all of 2020. I want to be better about logging mileage going forward so I'm gonna try and review my trips everyday before bed. Wish me luck. 

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'm getting ready to file my taxes so I went thru last years tax stuff and found I picture I drew of myself. It was my first year filing business income & expenses for 2018 and it took me a few weeks to go over all my records and file. It sucked while I was doing it but felt great once I finished. I think I did better job at keeping records for 2019 so it shouldn't take as long as last year.

I waited till the last day but I paid it on time. All the sales tax I collected from t-shirt sales in 2019. I would have forgoten if my friend Arely didn't ask me about it. Last year was her first year vending so she got her first notice to pay from the CDTFA. This is my second time doing it. Any questions I had this year I figured out by looking at my old records. I'm glad I got it paid in time and that I saved the money to pay it. Next up are the federal and state tax returns. I'm just waiting on my W-2 from work, and maybe a few other forms. I can't wait to get it done & over with and see how much money I'll have left over for merch.

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.