DISQUS

ntguru · 2 years ago

Very nice! Quick question: how is your Tax only $700ish dollars on realized income of around $8K? That's under 10% which seems really low assuming you're including all forms of income tax including both halves of FICA on the self-employment income.

Flexo · 2 years ago

ntguru: Good question. I pay quarterly taxes and then just take the expense then rather than carrying a liability each month. As it is, I probably won't be paying enough quarterly taxes. On top of that, I'm trying to convert my side business to an LLC which might further complicate my tax payments.

Tyler · 2 years ago

It makes me sick to see that you have all this money and yet nothing is given to charity. "Yet true religion with contentment is great wealth. After all, we didn't bring anything with us when we came into the world, and we certainly cannot carry anything with us when we die. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows." -1 Tim 6:6-10

Flexo · 2 years ago

Tyler: I give money to charity, but not every month. Don't quote the bible to me as your beliefs have no bearing on what I do with my life. The Book of Tim is not in my belief system. I respect your opinion, but that's all it is to me: your opinion.

I give more of my *time* to volunteer work for organizations whose missions I admire, and my time has been proven to be more valuable than the money I could give.

I'm sorry it "makes you sick," whatever that means. Pray for me, maybe through divine intervention I will become the better person you seem to think I am not.

I completely agree with you in that I should support those who need money more than I do, and I will be the best philanthropist I can be, but I don't need a book to tell me that I should do it, how much, and how often.

LTD · 2 years ago

The title of your article (which included your Net Income of $8173) reeled me in for a read. I thought,"Wow. Did Flexo's blogging revenues take a big leap? Did he get a nice raise?" :)

You do a very great job of consistently tracking your expenses. Although I see that you do state spending goals, I was wondering whether you maintain a budget as well and compare your expenses to that budget? You noted that you spent more for dining out. But I also noted that you spent less this month on groceries than in the month prior.

In my budget, which is also tied to goals, I cross level actual expenses. For example, if I overspend in one category, I'll cut back in others to cover the overspent amount. This has worked very well for me to stay within a budget and not feel too constrictive.

ntguru · 2 years ago

I figured it was those good old quarterly payments. I'm in the same boat where I'm brining in substantial secondary income and somehow those quarterly payments seem a lot worse than the biweekly W2 payments.

Are you trying to set up a single member LLC? If so, it shouldn't change your tax situation at all as that is what I did for my secondary business/income and a single-member LLC is a pass-through entity to the IRS.

Lazy Man and Money · 2 years ago

Yes, you do a tremendous job of tracking your expenses and incomes... I don't focus on this much at all (Quicken is too big with bells and whistles for my meager needs). It looks like too much work for it's value (remember I'm Lazy), but that may change in the next couple of months.

Flexo · 2 years ago

LTD: It's the "realized gain" that gave my income a nice paper boost. I'm not feeling it in the wallet, but I could certainly have worse troubles.

I try to balance groceries with dining out so when one month is high in one category, the other category is low. It tends to work out that way simply because I eat about the same amount of food each month -- though dining out is generally more expensive.

I don't use a budget. I just use my monthly numbers to track my behavior and (try to) make any changes from there. I think budgets can be great tools, and they're especially useful when income and expenses are too close for comfort.

The bottom line is adding another layer of time-intensive analysis is crossing the line. Like Lazy Man says, it's a lot of work. I've got it down so entering my expenses in Quicken is... quick... and converting my monthly reports to graphics for the site is somewhat quick, but writing the analysis is the big time drain.

Adding a budget analysis on top of that won't add much value, as I already compare my spending numbers to past months, averages, etc.

ntguru: Good to know regarding the LLC. I've been meaning to spend some time with a tax accountant to make sure I'm in good shape for 2007 (and possibly review 2006).

alex · 2 years ago

I'm with you Flexo. Tyler seems like a holier than thou twit.

Jonathan · 2 years ago

Sigh, such baseless judgments by people like Tyler only make it less likely that people will share openly about their finances.

Congratulations on your progress, Flexo, and best of luck in your new apartment.

EA · 2 years ago

When I moved a few years ago, I rented a truck from Budget and did the driving myself but hired two guys to help me load. I found them through a site associated with uHaul, and they had reviews of each "helper" so you could see how they had done before. You could only enter a review after you'd entered the code to pay them, so the reviews were pretty reliable.

Apparently it's "emove.com" now. I can't vouch for all of them, but the ones I hired were great and matched their reviews.