Taxes

Well this Tuesday I am tackling my taxes. Yeah I know talk about last minute, right? I have actually been working on my taxes for the past week, and it really has been a big reminder that being organized really does pay off. I just keep thinking about all the time I would have saved this past week if I were disciplined enough to keep my tax receipts organized throughout last year.

So this year I plan to get organized in the tax department and I just wanted to share a few tips of mine on how I plan to do this:

Organizing Receipts – I don’t know about you but I am addicted to itemizing everything, and getting every deduction I am entitled to. One of the best tips I have received on getting those receipts organized is to buy one of those expanding file folders and reserve one pocket for each month of the year. Whenever you get a receipt for something that is tax deductible you just place it in the pocket for that month.

Organizing Online Receipts – Last year I started a receipts folder in my email, but honestly that wasn’t specific enough because this year I had to sort through the 2008 and 2009 business receipts. So I got more specific with my folder labels and started a 2009 business receipts and a 2008 business receipts folder. This year I also plan to print up all my online receipts at the end of the month so I don’t spend an entire day printing up receipts for my records.

Tracking Donations – Goodwill is like my favorite place in the whole world. Well not really, but I know our family goes up there to make donations quite a bit. When you are an organizing mom you usually end up with a pile of stuff you simply don’t need. I know with us we donate a lot of clothes, I have three kids, and well ya’ll know how that is! So we donate a lot of stuff to Goodwill and they always ask me if I want a receipt and for some reason I always say NO!

Well this year I plan to take them up on their offer and start counting my donations to Goodwill. I have also found this awesome little tool offered by Turbo Tax called It’s Deductible. With “It’s Deductible” online software you can easily track your donations year round for free. It accurately values your donated items that meeets IRS guidelines, and when it’s tax time you can just import everything to Turbo Tax.

So those are my plans for getting organized for next years taxes. I am always looking for more tips, please feel free to share in the comments below!

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father,
Lord I just want to say thank you for your constant provision in my life. Not only that but you are always so gracious even when I certainly don’t deserve it. Lord I just pray for your help to be more disciplined in every area of my life. Asking for the ability to be more disciplined scares me, because it truly is something I personally struggle with, but I know with Your help and guidance we will succeed. I love YOU, and Thank YOU for EVERYthing. My life would be nothing without YOU. I pray this all in your might Son Jesus’ name. – Amen!

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Heather is a Christian Stay at Home Mom of three and happily married to her loving Firefighter husband, Shaun. Her hobbies consist of blog design and blogging. Heather is the author of the “Christian Moms Guide to Organizing Your Home.” She also keeps herself busy homeschooling her three children and shopping at Target.