pameladean: chalk-fronted corporal dragonfly (Libellula julia)
[personal profile] pameladean
We got an extension on filing our taxes this year. I had very good intentions of dealing with them much sooner than now, but didn't get to actually sorting papers and finding vital information until last week. I ended up with seven or eight file folders with stuff in them, a brown paper bag of papers for recycling, and an as-yet-unsorted mass, mostly of medical information, but with a leavening of charitable contributions and so on. I put the file folders, with all the W2 and other income forms, and the sorted household expenses and rental income information, back into the brown paper bag that said 2014 TAXES in large friendly letters, and then just slid the folders with sorted stuff in them down one side of the bag. I left the recycling in my bedroom, where I had been using the bed for sorting because my desk is a horror show; and I brought the bag of actual tax information, sorted and not, back into my office, because I was still discovering random credit-card statements and receipts for prescription medication and technicians' invoices for fixing dishwashers, and so on. Then I spent about a week and a half avoiding more sorting, though the deadline is approaching pretty quickly. At some point in this interval, I took out several brown paper bags of papers for recycling, labeled RECYCLING in large friendly letters.

Do not lecture me about this system. I know it is stupid. However, it has got me through catching up on *mumble* years of late taxes. Let me tell you, a brown paper bag for the year in question is a huge improvement over my previous method, which I don't intend to discuss because nobody could refrain from lecturing me about that one.

This afternoon, the internet went down. Well, I thought, I guess I'll sort some more of that stuff for taxes, and maybe get all the utility bills entered properly, because that's very tedious and I won't do it if I can do something more interesting. I picked up the brown paper bag from the location where I had left the one that said 2014 TAXES in large friendly letters. It said 2015 TAXES in letters superficially just as large but noticeably less friendly.

There are really too many brown paper bags in my office. It is okay, in my opinion, and do not start on me because I will not listen to you, to have bags of both useful paper and recycling. However, having the lovely shimmery moon and stars mobile that Eileen gave us as a housewarming present, which we recently had to take off the library light fixture but hope to hang elsewhere, in a brown paper bag is confusing; and having extra copies of the reissued Secret Country trilogy in a brown paper bag is confusing, and having a bag of brown sugar, a lidless refrigerator dish and a recipe for scones in a brown paper bag is DEEPLY CONFUSING. It's also less than helpful to have bags saying 2009 NON-TAX. They raise hope only to squash it flat again.

I spent a short time whimpering and emptying out bags of recycling. Then I thought, okay, I really do not think that that is the mistake that I made. I always read the bag and go through it before I recycle it. Always. Because I know my system is stupid.

I looked through every brown paper bag in the upstairs. We also have cat toys in paper bags. And sometimes actual cats.

I searched around and discovered that the IRS, grudgingly, has a way to get you a replacement copy of your W2 or other tax form, but it takes a long time. They prefer you to remember everything you need to about your employment, or have actual pay stubs, which seem to be going out of fashion quite fast, and reconstruct an estimate of your income and file that instead. I really didn't want to do that. One can also apply to the employers in question; how long that takes will of course vary with employer. I made about $26 in royalties last year, and the other income was made by David, with at least three different employers.

I decided to sleep on it, since I did not actually believe I had taken all the tax information and recycled it. Then I would have to email the accountants and hope that they would not also recommend the reconstruction of the income stream, not to mention the household expenses. At least the rental income is consistent, and one can get copies of bank and credit-card statements from the respective providers, though they tend to cut off abruptly at the date you want and demand compensation for sending you anything. Still, it could be done, one way or another.

The internet came back up. I started making vegan jambalaya. (NO, really, stop it. Nobody is making you eat it.) I went into my office, and Saffron was sprawled on the desk cushion. I reached out to rub her belly, and my brain said to me, "File drawer." I looked in the empty file drawer. Yes, yes, yes, it's empty because everything is in brown paper bags. It was not empty. In it was my bag with the folders and the unsorted receipts and statements, with 2014 TAXES in large friendly letters.

I now recalled quite clearly that Saffron had kept pawing at the bag of tax papers until it fell onto the floor, whereupon Cassie licked some of the bank statements. I have no idea; they were not visibly stained, nor did anything in the bag smell of anything but paper and dust. After three iterations of this behavior, I put the bag in the file drawer. Then, while procrastinating, I forgot all about it.

But now there is vegan jambalaya simmering on the stove, and it seems possible that sorting the damn papers won't be so tedious. At least they are there to be sorted.

Pamela

Date: 2015-07-31 12:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ritaxis.livejournal.com
Sister!

No lecture from me. You're doing what needs to be done.

Date: 2015-07-31 05:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ritaxis.livejournal.com
I don't know how I manage that. I'm the one whose bill paying system is "maybe if I think about something else for a while they'll pay themselves."

My house cleaning system is like that, only less organized.

My yard...I think you see the pattern.

Date: 2015-07-31 08:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ritaxis.livejournal.com
Oh, I can talk an organized talk, all right, but my attention span is rather mayfly-like, so I always have to start everything over again several times or it doesn't happen.

See also: my abject failure at any kind of career.

Date: 2015-07-31 12:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] evelyn-b.livejournal.com
Your current tax system is clearly superior to mine, which involves no paper bags and nothing that could reasonably be called a "system." What is brain, indeed,

And vegan jambalaya sounds delicious! :D

Date: 2015-07-31 01:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] magentamn.livejournal.com
I make what I call tofu creole, which may be similar to your vegan jambalaya - we should compare recipes.

Date: 2015-07-31 12:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rolypolypony.livejournal.com
O, yum. We need to try this!

Date: 2015-07-31 05:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rolypolypony.livejournal.com
That sounds really, really good! Thank you for sharing more detailed instructions!

Date: 2015-08-12 01:12 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com
Mmm, tempeh would be nice---this sounds delicious!

Date: 2015-07-31 01:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] inaurolillium.livejournal.com
Your system is still better than my system. Quite possibly your old system was better than my system.

Date: 2015-07-31 03:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] inaurolillium.livejournal.com
It does not work. That's what makes it worse than yours.

Date: 2015-07-31 02:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lblanchard.livejournal.com
I would whimper, too.

Fortunately, Roy does all that. I just put everything on credit cards so that he has a paper trail. I sincerely hope I predecease him.

Date: 2015-07-31 02:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] martianmooncrab.livejournal.com
Cats make great bookkeepers

Date: 2015-07-31 12:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vom-marlowe.livejournal.com
I see no real possible problem with this filing system of yours--it is nicely organized, rarely experiences briefly delays, and is eco-friendly. I used something very similar myself, and have only now begun fretfully looking at other options (plastic banker boxes? blech) because my new frolicsome companion is a German Shepherd puppy who enjoys kill-shaking paper bags. It is really quite exciting to see one's medical paperwork fly across the room and land in the coffee cups, the couch, and the houseplants.

Not to mention the joysome event when the puppy, having finished the execution of the paper sack, turns her not-so-tiny dragon-like teeth upon the papers which make me her Personal Human a bit gloomy and sad.

I considered sticking the bags under the bed, but I had forgotten we put the mattresses on the floor.

If only my desk had a handy filing cabinet....

Date: 2015-07-31 01:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com
Maybe the unknown hands who had prepared those tax statements had just had a tasty snack!

Your system sounds uncomfortably akin to our . . . (searching for a word, falling back on) system.

Date: 2015-07-31 02:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] alexfandra.livejournal.com
System? There are tax/fiscal info systems? I had no idea. But then, I don't have a complex fiscal life, with just the one house and the one job. And no cats -- and Truman the Dachshund is too short to reach anything important. So I just look at the W-2, mortgage, and credit union statements online each year, and then search through the one desk-top plastic file stand thingy for the charity donation receipts that I'm sure I put there over the year, with "2014 taxes" written on them in friendly letters.

Nice to know we have at least one part of the mess in common!

Date: 2015-07-31 02:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com
My husband is super-organized, to the point where he can't find the packing tape gun because he doesn't remember if he tidied it away into the Fasteners drawer, the Mailing Supplies drawer, the Office Supplies drawer or out in the garage with Tools, whereas I just have to remember where I was the last time I used it, because I left it there. He's that way with tax and other important papers, too, which makes it a bit easier, usually, than my pre-marriage system, which was to throw everything that looked vaguely important into a box labeled "TO BE FILED"--that was somehow very important--and then ignore it until I needed it, at which point I'd rifle through the entire box looking for it.

Date: 2015-07-31 02:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] inlaterdays.livejournal.com
I'm so glad you found the papers at last. ("Large friendly letters", hee.)

And I agree that vegan jambalaya sounds yummy.

Date: 2015-07-31 07:16 pm (UTC)
thinkum: (number crunching)
From: [personal profile] thinkum
Oh, pshew! for finding the records safe and sound! And thank you, for making me feel much better about my own haphazard (non)filing system. ;-)

Date: 2015-07-31 07:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jry.livejournal.com
I was whimpering just reading this. So glad for the happy ending.

Date: 2015-07-31 10:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] grenacia.livejournal.com
I keep my tax documents in plastic bags now, since I never seem to acquire paper ones of the right size anymore. In any case ,I don't find the bags thing weird, it just means we use things we have on hand to organize things rather than buy special organization receptacles that will just add more clutter. I also sort documents on my bed. It means I have yearly photos of the cat "helping with the taxes" up until the cat became too arthritic to get up on the bed herself.

Date: 2015-07-31 11:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com
This is hilarious and sums up my own relationship to household finances in general, and taxes in particular, quite well. You're speaking to someone who closed one bank account and opened another when the checkbook balancing thingie got too impossible.

And as I know from topping and tailing beans, and putting the tops and tails in one bowl and the part we're going to eat in another... it's easy to be confused about which is which, with potentially disastrous results. Sounds like you're doing heroically!

And vegan jambalaya sounds delicious!

Date: 2015-08-01 01:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thomasyan.livejournal.com
Your system doesn't sound too different from mine.

I have a cardboard box. When I get a tax document, if it is for a new tax year, I reuse its envelope and label it " TAXES". When I get another document, if the previous envelope has room, the document goes in, or I reuse that envelope and restart. At the end of the year, I go through my cardboard box and collect the envelopes and sort through them.

If I had lots more receipts and stuff, I'd reuse one of the big envelopes that sometimes comes in, possibly for stuff unrelated to taxes. But if I really had lots of receipts to keep for taxes, then I'd give up strongly consider paper bags, too.

Date: 2015-08-01 04:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)
I had to stop reading that half way down and pace around for a bit. So glad the necessary papers were not lost!

It's a system when people care about it, it has components, boundaries, and effects change, and it would be different if components were removed. That's pretty much it.

Well, and the solution has to be at least as complicated as the problem if it's going to function as a solution. You're doing very well at not making the solution you apply more complex than the problem.

Date: 2015-08-12 12:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)
Oh good! I was hoping it would be.

There's a lot of home accounting advice out there that presumes that the household accounts are appropriately on the same armature as, say, provisioning an aircraft carrier, and it annoys me from a system design perspective.

The get-up-and-pace result was fine, really it was; included as an indication of effective writing.

(I was reasonably certain that you wouldn't be using quite that register if there had indeed been a records disaster, but nerving myself up to fill out IRS forms (to invoke tax treaties for ebooks) takes me some effort, and they're not even my tax agency, as it were.)

Date: 2015-08-06 01:45 pm (UTC)
3rdragon: (firebird)
From: [personal profile] 3rdragon
Hey, my system consists of a box under my bed. That's where I stuff tax documents until I need them. Also medical paperwork. Also my lease. Also employment-and-benefits related paperwork. Also a folder of songs I only have written down on pieces of paper. Also papers relating to schools and previous jobs that are still too sentimental or potentially useful to throw out yet. There used to be a folder of paper recipes, too, but then I moved it to the shelf with the cookbooks, and then I lost it.

I guess we also have a magnet on the fridge with to-be-sorted household receipts, my personal and household expense spreadsheets, and a number of gmail tags. This year's big innovation was the creation of the Being A Grownup/Taxes gmail tag. (Last year's innovation was grouping all of these tags under the heading Being a Grownup.)

Mind you, my finances are generally pretty simple, so a one-year layer of papers in the box is usually fewer than twenty or thirty items deep.

One of these days I'll actually move to a proper file system with hanging folders and such. My mother did try to get me started on one when I was a kid, but I wound up throwing most of it out when I was in college because the categories that had been useful at age ten were not relevant at age twenty, and I really didn't have enough papers to justify it.

Date: 2015-08-06 01:47 pm (UTC)
3rdragon: (firebird)
From: [personal profile] 3rdragon
To clarify, only the receipts live under the magnet. Spreadsheets and gmail tags live on my computer and on the internet, respectively.

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