income tax returns

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Saturday Date Night: Filing Income Tax Returns and a Fancy Dinner

It has been our tradition for many years now that when it’s time for my wife and I to file our income tax returns at H&R Block, we invite my parents up for the weekend to watch the kids.

Our reward for getting through “math for adults”, as our daughter calls it, is we head over to Marshall’s to “see if there might be anything we might want”. Spoiler alert: We always find some things we want at Marshall’s.

And when I say “we”, I mainly main “I”. When it comes to bargain-buying new clothes, nice shoes, and fancy soaps, I’m pretty much the worst.

From there, we drive about 25 minutes, right outside of the “exciting night life” of Nashville, and instead, we enjoy a nice, quiet early dinner at a restaurant without kids.

This past weekend, we tried a place for the first time called Coal Town Public House. Whereas most men in this situation would probably order an expensive steak and a strong cocktail, I stuck with my night-on-the-town go-to of shrimp and grits, then opted for a non-alcoholic craft beer that instantly became my new favorite brewery, Athletic Brewing Company.

Because honestly, that is what I truly enjoy more than the real stuff at this point in my life.

Of course, with our upcoming move to Alabama this May, I realized this would make the last time we would do our “income tax/Saturday night dinner” tradition here in Tennessee.

Once we move, we will live 0.2 miles from my sister. It is an unspoken understanding that our kids, who happen to be the same ages, will be “house swapping” on a regular basis: No need for someone to watch the kids… the kids simply head down the street to their cousin’s house and vice versa.

With that being said, I am confident that my wife and I will continue our tradition once we move to Fort Payne.

So yes, this is my life. I am happy. There’s nothing like a kids-free early dinner after doing taxes, shopping at Marshall’s, and then enjoying shrimp and grits with non-alcoholic beer.

This is 42.

1 Comment Posted on finance, People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Income Tax Returns at H&R Block: So Relieved I Didn’t Owe Taxes on My 5 Side Hustles in 2018!

As I recently crowned myself “The SEO Side Hustler”, announcing that in 2018 I had 5 SEO-based side hustles that earned a minimum of $1,000 each, I knew that title would come with a potential downside:

This month when my wife and I would file our taxes for last year’s income, instead of getting money back from the IRS as we have every single year we’ve been married, it would be a very real possibility we could actually owe several thousand dollars instead of receiving that as a return.

When I said that I had 5 side hustles last year that earned a minimum of $1,000 each, the thing is…

For some of those side hustles, it was a bit more than a thousand dollars… or even a lot more.

I had never made that much in side income before. It was never an issue or a concern for the years prior.

The problem is that my superhero power of finding random ways to make money from my SEO skills didn’t mean that I automatically knew anything about being prepared for the taxes I would owe on that money.

It was a bit intense last Saturday morning, walking into H&R Block, knowing that in just an hour, we would know our fate; for better or worse.

Forty-five minutes into our consultation, it was looking as if we were going to owe about a thousand dollars; which wouldn’t have been awful.

But fortunately, and I would even say miraculously, our H&R Block representative found a couple more items that had not been considered yet as tax write-offs; like how I mainly use my phone for managing my side hustles, and the fact I have a room in my house dedicated exclusively to my side hustles, serving as my office.

Plus, our H&R Block representative helped us get set up on a system where we are now able to easily pay back 25% of my side income earnings in advance each quarter, so that there’s no reason for anxiety in paying those taxes next February.

At the 55 minute mark into our hour-long consultation, it was confirmed: Even after the consultation fee for H&R Block, we would still get a few hundred dollars back!

Our sense of relief was actually greater than our sense of celebration.

And it was perfect timing, as that money would ultimately end up covering our “24 hour parent staycation” that began the moment we left the moment we drove out of the H&R Block parking lot.

Stay tuned for that…