how to
Written by Luke Frye
Tax time is coming again — you can feel it, can’t you? Like a vibration on a train track.
It’s unstoppable, yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to be flattened. Learning about how to handle your taxes is the best way to avoid a nightmare scenario. The good news is that there are some basic principles, and it doesn’t take a wizard to learn them.
Here are four ways to have a smooth tax season, no locomotives involved.
Read MoreEverything is connected. Your relationship with money impacts both your inner world and your external world. In your outer world, outside of you, your feelings about money can impact how you see the world, how you act in the world, and how you interpret experiences in the world. In your inner world, your relationship with money can impact how you feel. You cannot wholly compartmentalize your financial life; as much as you may have convinced yourself you can. How you feel about your financial life and your relationship with money, impacts how you feel about yourself. How you think about yourself affects the choices you make. And all the choices you make, create who you are, what you're able to do, and who you will allow yourself to be.
Read MoreI moved to LA when I was 22, having just landed a job as an assistant at a boutique business consulting firm. Part of my job was driving around Los Angeles to run all sorts of errands. I'd deposit checks for clients at various banks all over town. I'd go to the post office to send tax returns via certified mail. I'd pick up lunch for the office, and go shopping for my boss. Keeping receipts for everything was easy. I didn't have very much responsibility, so whenever I got back in the office from one of my field trips, I had time to organize all the receipts. It was easy to make it a priority, especially when I had an employer who was in charge.
If you fast forward to recent years, I had gotten considerably crappier at keeping my receipts organized. For an embarrassingly long time, I was finding faded receipts at the bottom of my backpack or crumpled up in my back pocket, or the worst scenario of all - some would be lost and never found.
Read MoreHow many times have you thrown a penny away? Like you saw a penny on your desk, or you got it as a change, and instead of putting it in your pocket to use later, you throw it in the actual garbage? I'm not trying to judge you; I'm just trying to illustrate how the penny has lost its value over time.
In 1909, you could buy a copy of the New York Tribune for one cent. And in 1932, you could travel a mile in Southern Railway System. And I'm sure you might have heard a grandparent speak of buying candy at a local five-and-dime for a penny.
How does a penny go from getting you an entire newspaper to being so annoying that you'd rather throw them away than carry them around?
When money becomes less valuable, it's usually due to inflation.
Read MorePeople always assume I am so deeply passionate and stoked about finance. Like I jump out of bed and get excited about interest rates. That's not exactly true. I am super stoked and passionate about helping people, feeling like my work matters and having autonomy over it. So when people ask me why I started The Hell Yeah Group, the answer is often that, " I looked inside of my tool box of skills and realized I had some sharp tools that all pertained to bookkeeping, running a small business and personal financial planning.” As much as I wanted to create a cool company that had nothing to do with finance, I had constraints: I needed to earn money and there was no denying the skills I had, no matter how uncool I thought it was. Not exactly visions of grandeur, more like shining a turd.
But I’ve really grown to love how my work makes me feel, regardless of it’s non-passion status. I want to share the industry-specific things I’ve learned and observed over the years that I think everyone should know.
Read MoreWhat do we want? Gratification!
When do we want it? Instantly!
We live in a world saturated in instant gratification. We can contact our friends through multiple channels at any time of day, from anywhere in the world. We can have the city’s best sushi or a even just single lime delivered to our front door. The amount of entertainment we have access to at our fingertips is a number that my brain cannot actually comprehend. And we can generate a rush of dopamine in the time it takes to write a caption for a photo.
It’s no wonder why we give up on the things that require more than a few minutes of focus. We have so many other ways to feel instantly good and to distract us from the real work we could be doing. But real work takes, well - real work.
Read MoreI’m just going to come out of the closet and say this: I actually hate budgeting. And I think so many of us have sucked at it because it actually inherently sucks. A budget is the harsh fluorescent light the morning after, revealing all of our past personal mistakes. Not being able to stick to a budget highlights just how out of control we are in our daily lives, like how we are powerless to marketing that connects with us emotionally or how the market or an employer dictates what we can afford and ultimately, how we live our lives. On the surface, a budget is a bunch of numbers, but at it’s core, it forces us to confront ourselves.
Read MoreWritten by Luke Frye
Okay, this is going to sound extremely biased... but, as an accountant, I strongly recommend hiring a professional to file your business’s tax returns.
Sure, you’ll have to part with some of your hard earned cash in the short term. But I guarantee it will save you time and headaches. And if it helps you avoid making costly errors on your tax return (y’know, the ones that result in IRS fines), it’ll also save you money in the long run.
That said, I’m aware that it’s not always possible to hire a pro. So, if you’re doing your own tax return this year, here are some common mistakes to avoid.
Read MoreWhen you’re at a bar at 1am; you’re not drunk, but not not sober, surrounded by a bunch of friends, the last thing you want to do is load several heavy, oddly shaped items into a car only to have to unload them shortly after. This is the worst part about playing in a local band; you have to do everything yourself… but it’s just part of it. It comes with the territory.
To my freelancer friends and small business buddies who hate selling or pitching or talking about the money part of things. I get it, it sucks, but too bad. It’s the trade off for being able to spend your working life building something you believe in. It’s the cost of mostly being in charge of your life. Talking about money doesn’t have to suck. You can stop hating it, but you have to do some work to change your own perspective on it.
Here are some ways I think about selling. I hope some of it will light up your brain and help you power past some of your limiting beliefs around selling and talking to customers about money.
Read MorePeople talk about opportunities like they’re a nebulous, disembodied thing. Like they’re floating around and will land on your shoulder and boom, your life is changed forever. Let’s say they are. Imagine opportunities are all floating around in form of balloons. Every balloon is connected to a string. And at the end of the string, even though you might not be able to see it, there is a person holding the string.
You see, opportunities are not standalone. They’re always connected to a person.
This article is all about understanding who you serve. Who is your ideal customer, target market and what’s your niche?
Read More