Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Doing Taxes and Other Mundane Things

The big envelope came in the mail from the IRS On Monday. I do qualify! I do, I do, yippee, I do! I'm almost a real person in the real world (whatever that is) after all. I will qualify for the tax stimulus rebate check.

So now I get to file. Last year was not a great year. I should do my Mary Kay income on a quarterly basis, but it is too discouraging. Last year seemed to be adequately busy. The pile of tickets that I wrote seems to be about as thick as in previous years. (You can see I do this in a really organized, "scientific" way that an accountant would cringe about. It's not as bad as Marlo Thomas's "That Girl", with her shoebox full of receipts, including the Popsicle stick on which she had written the amount she spent treating her Brownie troop to Popsicles. Made perfect sense to me.

Anyway, actually crunching the numbers hurts. Shows why the picture each month has been a little bleak and my self-esteem isn't exactly any more enhanced than my bank balance. What to do, especially in a recession, to better the situation? Blow my own horn louder, I guess.

Next to the IRS site to find the right forms and then to see if joining the Stanford Professional Women's club will do me any good in the way of finding more customers. I like working, I like being self-employed, I would like it all even more if it just made a steadier income. Still I am grateful that I will get the rebate. It isn't quite winning the lottery, but it is good to be included.

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