Holy Crap! Taxes!

Well, in years past I had been running a business, so it wasn’t half as time consuming or expensive to do my taxes this year. I’m a little bit exhausted having spent a considerable portion of my weekend either worrying about doing, or actually getting down to work and doing my taxes. But as it is now 15 minutes to Monday, I am a little relieved and actually proud to have finished them this soon.

I owe a little; less than $200 actually, which means I’m having the right amount taken out of each paycheck. I don’t like getting money back; it means I loaned our Government additional, interest-free money throughout the year. I’d rather pay a little at the end.

I don’t agree with everything our government is doing with my tax dollars; in fact over the past few years I’ve been downright disappointed with our Government. It worries me that our dollar has dropped to record lows. Oh, and don’t think for a second that won’t trickle down to us; it has already caused increased prices as evidenced by articles I’ve blogged in the past. Anyway, I suppose somebody has to pay the bills. I’d rather live here than most of the other countries in the world anyway.

So I’m still working through Dave Ramsey’s baby steps. I’m still on Baby Step #2, but working diligently. I realized something this weekend, though, and it’s worth sharing. I am a very results oriented person, meaning I want to see my hard work pay off. I’m also a very “instant gratification” kind of person. I hate having to wait for results. So going through a long process of debt reduction is so difficult. I keep tweaking with my spreadsheets playing with different ideas (2nd jobs, selling everything but myself, etc) to try and speed the process up – to optimize, so to speak.

But two things came to me this weekend. First, because I’m not very good at these long processes, this is a good exercise for me. I need to embrace this process and see it through – kind of like understanding that the journey is more important than the destination, kind of thing. Second – I realized that having a solid plan, and having done everything possible to implement that plan – in other words, having committed to a planned budget, is practically as good as having accomplished the goal itself. I can be proud of that – feel good that I am doing the right things right now. If I can keep that frame of mind for the next 2 years I’ll be well on my way…