Change really happens
I have to call this “personal change” because the word “change” has kind of been co-opted :D People might think I’m talking about Obama, which I do often enough. But no, this is about my life. For YEARS, I’ve been talking about changing my life, to the point where every time I say, “just a few more months and things will be different,” no-one believes me anymore.
But the fact is, I’m there!! And I just have to share it because it’s been a constant blogging theme over the years. I’ve been talking about the change I want to make happen, and it finally occurred to me that now that it’s here, I should say something :D So, what has changed?
In the last 5 years, I have moved three times (actually four, if you count the apartment I was living in while looking for a house). I am finally in the house that is really right for me, in a town I love, in a neighborhood I enjoy and with lots of wonderful things to do. Yay! I am no longer paying for a house that is too big for me, and my mortgage payments are under $1000. I have a manageable size yard and just enough space in the house, not too big, not too small. It’s open and airy and unique in style, in a woodsy green part of the city.
Probably the biggest piece of the puzzle and the one that will finally keep my colleagues from scoffing at my claims of change ;) is that I have finally made my career transition. I am no longer taking technical work (unless I really decide I want to take a small, interesting project) and I have finished all but one of my existing technical projects. That one is waiting on some agency decisions before writing the final report. I have enough mediation work to support myself full-time at a strong income level. My technical editing work is going well and more than paying the mortgage each month. Most importantly – I am no longer working the equivalent of three jobs.
Which leads to the biggest change of all – free time. My calender is open. I have major facilitation commitments for one week every two months, with maintenance work in between, and editing jobs on about an every other day basis, that don’t take up the full day. To see those empty pages on my calendar is just joy materialized, especially in contrast to the last three years, where every day of every page was filled with meetings, conference calls, appointments and work that had to be done in the evenings and weekends. As of this week, I feel free.
Free to exercise and get healthier – I spent yesterday researching the various studios and gyms that offer yoga, tai chi, and pilates in this area (of which there are many). I can go bike riding or kayaking or walking. I can dink around the farmer’s market and buy healthy food to cook, or just enjoy the day. I have a brand new wonderful gas stove on which to cook the healthy food. Time to sleep…
Free to write and continue to move more of my work online, always with the goal of diversifying and being able to live in Latin America someday. I am excited about revamping my website, finishing my book (which has been 2/3 done for years), offering new kinds of readings, and teaching classes online. I want to try self-publishing. For a change, I am a student in an online tarot study group.
Free to let my body be what it is, and have the down-time it needs, without always having to force myself to work through it because there were deadlines that had to be met and commitments to clients to keep.
Free to have a relationship, when and if that manifests itself, and free to enjoy social time with my friends without feeling like it impossibly cuts into my energy level and workload. Maybe I can finally have a dinner party here :) What I would really love is a dinner group – once a month or so we all cook for each other.
Free to travel and take a vacation of more than one week. I honestly can’t remember how long it’s been since I had more than one week or 10 days on vacation at a time – probably around 10 years. Maybe I can finally really learn Spanish.
Obviously, I won’t get to do all these things at once. But I have a choice now to do any of them I want – and that’s a change for the better, and hard-earned. Thank you for celebrating that with me.
Stimulus, anyone?
I’m just curious if anyone has directly felt the results of the stimulus package or new economic policies recently. Here are some ways in which they have positively impacted me lately, from more direct to less direct:
- I was able to claim the $600 tax credit on my 2008 taxes (I think because I didn’t receive it the year before but was eligible this year)
- I will be able to claim a 30% rebate on the installation of an energy-efficient tankless water heater on next year’s taxes (and if I decide to replace my old windows later this year, on that too)
- I refinanced at a rate of 4.65, which will save me $200/month in payments, and a good friend did the same and will save $400/month, and I know of at least two other friends who have refinanced for big savings and/or reduction in loan period
- I have one friend who avoided foreclosure of her home through the new program
- Seems like my SEP-IRA has rebounded a bit
Now if only this were my first house, I could have claimed that sweet $8000 tax credit on buying it last year! Oh well… On the plus side, my cousin and his fiance are buying their first house at very good prices and will get the rebate, so yay :) It was a foreclosed house and they are putting a lot of work into it, but in the end it will be a very good deal for them.
Stuff that is less reassuring… WA Mutual got taken over by Chase. I suppose that is neutral and still fall-out from the original issues. Nothing seems to have changed (we have an non-profit account there that I manage as Treasurer). My bank reduced my credit line from a really ridiculously high level to a somewhat more reasonable level (amounts not listed to protect the innocent) because I pay it off each month and never get anywhere near it. To me, that actually seems like a bright move on their part, a tiny bit of fiscal responsibility. What a concept – give people only the level of credit they actually need/want.
What about you? I usually wouldn’t talk this much about personal money, but it’s interesting to see when/if a government policy actually makes a difference. I haven’t heard of anyone I know getting or keeping a job due to the stimulus money, though I know organizations that have benefited from it. Have you?
A kinder, gentler IRS?
A while back, maybe in March, I heard an interview with the new Director of the IRS on NPR. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and basically said the IRS was going to cut people some slack this year due to all the economic upheaval. Even if you couldn’t pay your taxes, you were encouraged to send in your return and work with them on a plan, or maybe they could find you some credits to help out. Sounds great, in theory :)
Well, this year I had a little problem with my taxes, as in underpaying them. Last year, I decided to start using the annualized income method, which a complicated way of calculating your quarterly estimated taxes. Normally, you have to pay the same amount each quarter, based on what you earned last year. But my income varies so much from year to year and from quarter to quarter that that just wasn’t working for me. I kept guessing wrong and overpaying or underpaying substantially.
So, I started using the horribly complicated form each quarter and carefully filled it out, basically like doing your whole taxes every quarter. Still, I felt good that I was paying the right amount as I went along, and at the end of the year it would all work out right. NOT. You see, I made sort of a basic, unrelated mistake. In the middle of the year I moved and got new bank accounts (but still had the old ones). I downloaded those into Quicken and started directing a lot of my payments into them. But forgot to add them to the automatic reports I was using to calculate my taxes (OOPS!). So, I underpaid for the 3rd and 4th quarters and owed a penalty at the end of the year.
SIGH. In early April I sat down to do my taxes, paid the unpaid amount, and then worked on the form to calculate the penalty. Because I was using annualized income, the IRS couldn’t do it for me – so I had to do all four quarters ALL OVER AGAIN. Nevertheless, at the end, I found I only owed about $60 in penalty. Yay! Mostly because the error was late in the year and the interest on the unpaid amount wasn’t that much.
Remembering the NPR interview and at a friend’s urging, I included a note of apology and an explanation of how I had managed to underpay my taxes. Yesterday, I got something from the IRS. This always makes me a little nervous, as any small business should at even the remotest possibility of an audit. But lo and behold, it was a check in the amount of my penalty payment. Apparently they took my good faith and attempts to do the right thing into account, and gave me a break. It’s not that much in terms of dollars, but it feels like a nice gesture anyway. So thanks, IRS!
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