I'm trying to blog every day to stay on track and spend time focusing about money and not wasting it playing on the web. I love playing on the web :}
I was inspired after blogging yesterday to finish entering the remaining statements for my hobby business. I tend to call it a hobby business because its not my main job, but its a real business, it did gross $150,000 last year and employed 22 people at least part-time. Plus me, but I work for free :} Its run from my house and I do a lot of advice, but the daily stuff is run by others. I do all the financials though. I am currently a sole owner so it all goes on my personal income tax.
Other things I need to compile for taxes - charity donations - work trip receipts (Germany, ?), bank info (interest, mortgage interest), Kansas house sale info + income before sale, stock sell info (wasn't there a letter about this from last Jan?), ... I'm sure I"m missing things. Next year I will be more prepared because of this wonderful blog that will help keep me organized.
TODO - organize paperwork and set up files so they will be maintained over the year instead of just putting everything in a 'to be filed' hanging folder.
I bought a $50 coupon for a local Mexican restaurant for $4 yesterday. Yes, FOUR dollars. From Restaurants.com. Regularly $20, but I got $16 off by going through upromise and typing in DINNER for a coupon. My friend is getting 13% for her student loan. I chose a place I haven't been that I think my nieces will enjoy. Its an inexpensive place and I'm not sure we can even eat $50 worth!
I also bought some toner and other things for the business using the upromise link, Staples.com offers 2% so I bought all the things I usually do at the end of tax time (1099 forms, storage boxes, etc) and got free shipping, and they will arrive before I could have gone shopping anyhow.
I also opened a new type of savings account and transferred my 6-month emergency fund to it (and set up the $1200/month automatic savings). The old savings was getting 0.25 (going to .3 at 25,000), the new one is 0.30 now going to 0.35 at 25,000. Not a huge difference. The CD rates weren't worth the lock. This savings is something to look into when I start studying my investments... (TODO)
Jan 12 update
January 12th, 2012 at 11:11 pm
January 13th, 2012 at 02:07 pm 1326463674
January 13th, 2012 at 05:12 pm 1326474756
TO DO - READ the book!