March 21 2019

Organizing Your Records for Tax Time

I know this may be a little late for some and a little early for others. It is timely for me because we are going to get our taxes done in a week and need to gather everything up to be ready for our tax appointment.

So what do you need to do to get ready to do your taxes? Well, I keep an empty file folder in the file drawer year-round that says “Current Year Taxes”. Any time throughout the year that we get a receipt for a charitable donation or something else that we know we will need for our taxes, I can just drop it in and never have to worry about where I put it when the time comes. This system has been working well for us for many years.

One year I got the brilliant idea to list everything that we actually used during our tax appointment in the order the tax guy requested it so that next year I would have a checklist and know when we had everything we needed to do the taxes. This addition to the folder system has worked better than I ever thought it would. Some years I realize that something has changed, so the list gets updated from time to time.

Basically, my list is in outline form as shown below. We actually list out the names of employers, banks, retirement accounts and such to make it as specific as possible.

Things Needed for Taxes:

Wages

  • Job 1 W2
  • Job 2 W2

Interest (1099s)

  • Checking Account
  • Savings Account
  • Investment Account
  • Retirement Account

Mortgage Interest

  • Home Mortgage

Taxes Paid

  • State Income Tax Refund
  • Excise Tax on all vehicles

Charitable Contributions

  • Church
  • College

Deductions

  • Work Tools
  • Mileage
  • Medical Bills
  • Not-For-Profit Charities
  • Tuition Expenses
  • 529 College Savings Plan

So this is by no means a complete list, but it is the bare bones of what we gather up with a few additions of things I know others need to have to complete their taxes. If you haven’t done your taxes yet, make yourself a list in your computer and gather each item up as you add it to the list. When you do your taxes this year, see what needs changed on your list or added to it. Find a large envelope or folder of some sort to keep your list and documents together. If you’ve already gotten your taxes done this year, you can set up this system to make it even easier for you next year.

If you see anything that I missed on the list or have a better system, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to contact me or leave a comment below.

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March 7 2019

Finding Time for Hobbies

Do you have hobbies? Do you make time to enjoy your hobbies regularly? Maybe you are like so many others who wish they could fit in the time for their hobbies but just don’t know where to find the time.

A few years ago I decided to find help with finishing the crochet rug I had started in a class but then got busy and put it away to finish later. The problem was that when later came, I couldn’t figure out how to pick back up where I left off. I decided to take it to my family’s Thanksgiving gathering and ask my Aunt Mary if she could help me figure out how to finish the project. She wasn’t used to crocheting with such a huge hook, but the stitches are still the same and she took one look and knew it was a single crochet stitch, but I had no clue back then. She got me started and I kept going until it was finished that day. I decided then and there that if I was going to crochet I would have to do it regularly so I wouldn’t forget again. I didn’t start any other crochet projects for a long time, and by the time I did want to do another rug, YouTube was a thing.

YouTube is amazing for teaching you practically anything you want to learn and you can rewatch or pause and step your way through the video as often as you need to until you know what you are doing. If one person’s way of demonstrating a crochet stitch doesn’t work for you just look for someone else demonstrating the same stitch.

So you are wondering no doubt if I am completely off topic or if I am going to share ideas to help you find time for your hobbies after all.

1 Find Events to Attend

When I started that second rug, it went well enough but the rug ended up looking like an infant-sized basket instead of a flat rug. I found a group that met once a month at my local library that would offer help if needed and let me meet others who also knitted or crocheted. You can read about How I Learned to Crochet if you like. I found two more groups that all meet once a month for about two hours. I rarely crochet at home, but I look forward to meeting up with these three groups of fellow yarnslingers and this means I can get about three hats a month crocheted for charity if nothing else.

2 Give Up Social Media 

Now don’t panic and start throwing things. You might just want to give up one form of social media for a month and see how it goes while still using the others. Maybe you could just declare an hour or two a week a social media free hours and use that time to work on one of your hobbies. We could all stand to cut back on the scrolling through our feed thing.

3 Find a Friend and Make a Hobby Date

Maybe your hobby is running or swimming or trying new flavors of ice cream or scrapbooking. I bet you have a friend who also enjoys this hobby or would like to get started. Make a date and do only hobby-related stuff. If you don’t have a friend who enjoys the same hobby, see number 1 above and make a new friend.

4 Teach Your Hobby

Maybe you need to make a little extra so you have a part-time job. Maybe you just want to share the love of your chosen hobby with others. Either way, you could teach it to one person or sign up to teach a class. You get to share something you love and spend time doing it at the same time.

5 Hobby While You Wait

Maybe you want to find more time to read, knit or draw. These are all things that could be kept in a tote bag or backpack specifically for those times when you find yourself waiting at the doctor’s office or the pickup line at school. You can also do these things while sitting and watching

6 Find a New Hobby

If you are finding it hard to fit your current hobby into your schedule, maybe you need to find a new hobby that is easier to fit into your schedule. Be open to trying new things.

7 Find Common Hobbies

If you have hobbies in common with those you are already spending your time with, you can all hobby together. Maybe the family could go hiking together on weekends? If you are looking for something you can do with others, look into Letterboxing or GeoCaching. Both are fun ways to explore your area and get a little exercise and fresh air.

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November 15 2018

Holiday Organizing

Holiday Organizing

As we approach the holiday season, many of you will be decorating your homes for the holidays. Over the years, I have learned a thing or two about getting organized for the holidays.

Years ago, I got some green and red tubs to put away the decorations after the holidays were over so they would be easy to locate in the attic or basement. Before then, we used an assortment of cardboard boxes to store our decorations. The tubs were larger and had nice handles which made fewer trips up and down the attic or basement steps and the handles made them easier and safer to carry.

Believe it or not, we have a black and orange tub to store the fall and Halloween decorations and a pastel yellow tub to store spring and Easter decorations. Yep, these are obvious when stacked among other tubs and easy to find or send someone else to get.

This year as you get out your decorations think about those that you choose not to put out and consider WHY you aren’t using them this year. Maybe they just don’t suit your tastes or style of decorating anymore. Maybe they belong to your kids and you need to sort those into a tub for each of your children so they will have a tub of their own to start their decoration collection with when they move into a home of their own. We have a few ornaments that are very breakable family treasures that we rarely put on our tree because we don’t want to take a chance on breaking them. As I am writing this and thinking of those ornaments, it occurs to me that these will have no meaning to our kids because they were never a part of our holiday decorating. I am now asking myself what I am saving them for. This is the year we either use it or lose it. If it doesn’t fit neatly into the tubs we already have to store our decorations in, then we will need to declutter some things so we can keep others.

Another quick tip is to attach a list of what is in each box or at least label them (ornaments, garland, lights, nativity, etc.). You could use double-sided tape to attach a sheet protector and then slide the lists in and out as needed while keeping it clean, dry and protected.

We have done this every few years and we got to the point where we realized the ornaments our kids were getting each year were over-crowding our tubs and the kids needed their own, so I waited for the lovely red and green tubs to go on deeply discounted sale and bout one for each of them. Then we took a huge black permanent marker and wrote each kid’s name on the lid and tub their ornaments would now be stored in.

If that kid didn’t take the time to put their decorations on the tree then they didn’t get used. The kids were also in charge of taking their ornaments off the tree each year and putting them away in the boxes they came in to keep them nice. This is always something of a trip down memory lane as they remember the things that were going on in their lives during those years. Their great-grandmother and grandma each chose ornaments for each of them every year. The ornaments were usually Hallmark ornaments. Occasionally if we found an ornament that had particular meaning for one of them we would also get them an ornament. Because the kids were in charge of hanging their own ornaments each year, they remember them and will have those memories for the rest of their lives. I would tell the kids as they packed their ornaments away that first year that they should also put any ornament they personally made in their tubs and let me know if there was anything, in particular, they wanted to keep that had special meaning to them but didn’t specifically belong to them.

Last year, we never got around to putting the tree up and it was oddly sad not seeing it, but very nice not having to put it away either. It was the only year I can ever remember not having decorated the house for the holiday season.

Now we don’t get carried away, we usually just set up the artificial tree and decorate it, hang the stockings and set out some decorations on the mantel and tabletops in the living room. We don’t have tons of stuff and it can usually be put up or taken down in an afternoon or evening. I like the get it set up over Thanksgiving weekend and Hubby doesn’t like to have it taken down before the twelfth day of Christmas for some reason. I usually like it down sometime around new years, but I usually let him keep it up longer.

So when it comes to organizing your holiday decorations you need to set aside a time and add it to your calendar to do the decorating and un-decorating. You also need to make a list of things you will need like wrapping paper, tape, bows, gift boxes or whatever you use. Do you need to buy stamps to mail letters or cards? Is your address list current? Do you need to get updated addresses for that cousin that bought a house this year? Schedule in ten or fifteen minutes a day to do something to make this year’s holiday season go smoother. Do you have the recipes you will make gathered up? Have you been adding the non-perishable items to your shopping list each week so the grocery budget doesn’t explode the end of December? What are the things you can do ahead of time to save yourself the added stress later?

Do you know where you are going on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day? What days do you and your family members have off work? Are there programs you need to attend? Add them all to your calendar. Do you need to make reservations for dinner somewhere? How about tickets to the show or event you want to attend? Do you plan to donate your time ringing a bell, wrapping gifts, shopping for those less fortunate, serving meals at a soup kitchen? Add it all to your calendar. It would be a shame to miss something you want to do because it wasn’t on your calendar and in the business of the season it slipped your mind.

If you take the time to make your lists and check them twice over the next week or two, you will be amazed at how much smoother everything goes and how much less stressed you feel and how much more enjoyable the season can be. You owe it to yourself to get organized for the holidays. Yes, YOU are worth it!

In case you missed these recent holiday related posts, be sure to take a minute to read them by clicking the links below.

Are the Holidays a Burden?
Saving for the Holidays

If you have been reading this blog very long it probably isn’t a surprise that I am pre-writing some of the November Thursday posts so I can focus on writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days (NaNoWriMo). Stay tuned and add yourself to the email list in the near the upper right of this page so you can be notified by email when I post something new and can read it right in your email if you choose.

Category: Family, Organizing, Planning | Comments Off on Holiday Organizing
November 8 2018

Saving for the Holidays

Today, I want to talk about saving money during the holidays. Some families are large and some are small. If you have a list a mile long of people you want/need to buy gifts for, you need a plan to make that work.

First, grab some paper and make a list of all the people you need to buy gifts for this year. Do you have a budget so you know how much you can spend on holiday-related things? If not, that’s fine for this year, but hopefully, you will have a better handle on it next year after you read this.

Next, you need to remember what the holiday season is all about. It doesn’t matter which holidays you celebrate most of us believe the season is about being thankful and not just about doing all the things and buying all the gifts. It’s not about the gifts or the decorations or the food, well, maybe the food. Just kidding. The holidays are a time to get together with friends and family and celebrate spending time together and being grateful for everything you have in your life, including those loved ones.

Set an amount that you will spend on each person that fits in the budget you have without going into debt. That may be $1 per person or $100 or anything in between or maybe you are independently wealthy and the sky is the limit. You know your finances and what you can afford without going into debt. If you budget is tight, maybe you give gifts by family group. Maybe you pull names and each person buys for one other person. Maybe you play a game often referred to as Dirty Santa or White Elephant. The point is if it is too much either cut the amount you spend on each person or cut the list down to the number of people you can afford or some other creative way to stay within your budget and not dread the credit card bills that will be coming in January if you use plastic to stick to someone else’s idea of what a gift needs to cost.

Perhaps you are great at baking and want to make trays of cookies to share with each family or a loaf of banana bread or even a fruitcake, though that wouldn’t be my first choice on either the giving or receiving-end of things. Maybe you could make coupons or gift certificates for something you can gift without cost (your time) for things like babysitting, back massages, manicures, oil changes, car washes, house cleaning, taking down holiday decorations, you get the idea. There are things YOU can do that someone on your gift list would really appreciate having done for them. Maybe it is one on one time with a niece or nephew, maybe it is helping grandma clean out the attic or garage. You could record yourself reading a child’s favorite book so they can hear it every night without their parents’ sanity on the line.

Like to encourage reading? Find the perfect magazine for the people on your list. The subscriptions can often be less than $20 a year and then the recipient has future issues to look forward to and something new to talk about when they see you again.

Maybe a young family is struggling and would really appreciate a family membership to the local zoo or children’s museum. Maybe a teen would like movie passes or fast food gift certificates. There are so many things you can make or do for others that requires little more than your time and attention.

Make memories, not messes. Before giving gifts, consider whether the person will want to find room to store the thing and dust the thing you gift them. Consider giving clutter-free gifts. Gift certificates and food gifts are great because they get used up and can be a great idea again next year. Ask for ideas if you aren’t sure what to give someone. Maybe they would rather you donate in their name to a favorite charity instead of giving them a new sweater or tie.

Whatever you end up giving this year, keep track of it and think about how the amount you spent fit into your financial means. Should you cut back next year? Could you afford to do more if you planned better? Total everything up, and I mean everything that isn’t a part of your regular monthly expenses. Special clothing for holiday photos, special food for holiday gatherings, baking supplies, office pitch-ins, gifts for co-workers, greeting cards, stationery, postage stamps, decorations, live garlands or trees that can’t be reused safely next year, seriously everything. How much did it cost you? Can you afford that amount? Now, when do you want to start shopping for everything next year? August, October, November? Doesn’t matter when; that is up to you. Just figure out how many months you have between January 1st and the time you want the money to be in place so you have it to shop with. If that is August 1st, then you have seven months to save. Divide your budget number by the number of months and make yourself save that amount in an account that you don’t touch except to buy holiday gifts. It is that simple.

If you want to get even more budget conscience, add in the amount you need to cover the cost of birthdays and other celebrations for the entire year. Take that new year-long total and divide by 11 because you will have the money saved a little early and if you save 1/11th each month for the entire year, you have a little extra padding in your budget for things you forgot to add in or to splurge a little on yourself.

Here are a few resources I’d like to recommend:
FlyLady’s Holiday Control Journal
FlyLady’s Holiday Cruising Missions 
FlyLady’s Holiday Cleanup Missions

If you have other ways of budgeting for the cost of holiday celebrations or inexpensive gift ideas, I’d love it if you shared them with all of us in the comments below.

If you have been reading this blog very long it probably isn’t a surprise that I am pre-writing the November Thursday posts so I can focus on writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days (NaNoWriMo). Stay tuned and add yourself to the email list in the near the upper right of this page so you can be notified by email when I post something new and can read it right in your email if you choose.

Category: Money Saving, Planning | 1 Comment on Saving for the Holidays
March 9 2018

Saving for Big-Ticket Items

When you need to save for a big-ticket item, like a trip to London, or a really cool new camera, or something equally cool that you wouldn’t normally get a loan for like a new car, how do you save the money for it? I do all sorts of things, whatever it takes really, if the goal is truly important to me, so I will share some ideas below.

The very first thing I would do is to set up a separate account to put the money into so you can be motivated by the act of saving and watching the account balance grow. Once you’ve done that, try any or all of these ideas to help you meet your goal.

  • Save all pocket change, roll, and deposit. I saved pennies in one 16.9 oz Ice Mountain water bottle and nickels and dimes in another. I am told if you fill one with just dimes, it will hold about $100. We deposited over $130 in rolled coins to start our account this way, though admittedly, it was mostly quarters and we had been saving them a long time.
  • Choose NOT to do something, then transfer the money you would have spent on the thing you chose NOT to do, into the account for the big-ticket item. In our case, this was going to a cabin in a state park over New Year’s weekend.
  • Cook at home instead of eating out. Watch your food budget get lower and save the difference. Note that you pay extra for convenience foods, so make as much from scratch as you can, or buy extra to stock up when you find a good sale price on something you use.
  • If you really want to eat out, use a 2 for 1 coupon and save the difference, or if you are eating out alone get the second meal to take for lunch or eat for dinner later in the week.
  • Make your own iced tea, coffee, hot tea or whatever your beverage of choice is. Save the money you would have spent and put it into the big ticket account.
  • Give up paying for drinks if and when you go out to eat. We all need to drink more water. This can save anywhere from a dollar to several dollars per person, and let’s not even think about buying alcohol out, get it from the liquor store and drink at home you will save so much this way.
  • Save all overtime pay or freelancing money in the big-ticket account.
  • If you pay off a debt, take the amount you used to pay toward that debt and save it for the big ticket item or pay that amount extra toward the next debt so it gets paid off earlier and when the debts are paid, ALL the money formerly used to pay these debts can go toward the big-ticket item. Dave Ramsey calls this the debt snowball.

 

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