Menny Hapee Returns

Hi everybody, tax time!  I went through the hassle of filing all of my many W-2s, 1099’s and multiple state returns.  After all was said and done, I ended up paying about $100 to TurboTax for all of the various extra calculations the program had to do. Something to keep in mind, if you are working as a “non-employee” and will be filing a 1099-MISC, (or any other 1099) is to save your receipts religiously.  All of your receipts.  When filing, you can claim your purchases as deductions, including your expenses for travel, cell phone costs, food (in certain circumstances), supplies, hotels, clothing, electronics, etc.  This can really make a difference, especially if you made a decent amount from the job.  Without these deductibles, you will likely be paying a hefty lump sum in income tax, since you haven’t been automatically paying over time in your paycheck as with a W-2.

$500 should be magically appearing in my account in the next few days.  I’m looking forward to using $75 of the money to jump start a gym membership (as a little birthday gift to myself!  Here comes 26), $100 to kill a chunk of my private loan,  $200 to my parents for having shipped my jalopy of a car to Florida a few months ago, and the meager remainder to go into my savings, where I hope to leave it alone and let it magnetize more cash.  I had hoped for a lot more money because I still need a computer, and I am getting itchy feet for more education and a fresh new lifestyle.  I suppose this is just one more fire under my rear to get me looking for additional income.

Tax Season

This tax season, I have no less than 7 W-2s and 2 1099s.   I’m also getting food stamps.  My tax return process is going to be a nightmare!  In the past I’ve never had to fill out more than two jobs worth of information.  In total, I still didn’t make very much in the 2014 year.  I hope to get back a decent chunk of money, some of which I will use to pay off my private loan, the other I will put away for big travel plans, and a new computer.  If I can get back at least $1,000, I will be in pretty decent shape.  If I did my math right, I paid a bit over $1,200 in taxes, so we will see.  It was an incredibly rough year.  I sometimes can’t believe I survived.  I put my nose to the grindstone and pushed to make those bucks and find the wiggle room where I could.  Even this month I’m having to pay in chunks for my rent, planning to gain another form of income soon.

A friend of mine is lending me her awesome desktop, complete with the Adobe Suite, and I’ve been having a blast playing with it.  I haven’t had access to the programs since the dark ages.  Now, they are so much more slick and intuitive.  I’m also editing video for a past artist in residence here, and am starting to feel pretty confident in my speed and abilities with Adobe Premiere.  I’m relearning how to animate in Flash, and testing out fancy time saving techniques in Photoshop.  Over the next couple of months, my portfolio will start to grow with character design, motion graphics and editing.  I also grabbed my silkscreen and intend to hit the printmaking studio again, get some work done on old etchings, and start to combine my digital and physical skills into a powerful monster!

I am also starting a cleanse and fast this month.  With all of the stress and financial pressure I’ve been under, I’ve been eating quite a bit more than I should to try to ease the pain.  In doing so I’ve gained about 20 pounds this year.  I’ve almost forgotten how my body is naturally shaped.

Anyway, it’s nice (and daunting) to have this pile of paperwork as testament to the amount of work I put in this year.  It was truly challenging, but I survived and intend to keep growing and learning as an independent person and self-supporting artist.  I have good feelings about this year.  I’m considering moving to New Orleans in the summer, which will be a very difficult decision, especially after all of the snow melts away in the gorgeous spring right around the corner up here in New England.  And every day I flip-flop between being absolutely frustrated, and absolutely in love with Providence.  I’ll give it another month or two to mull it over.

Good luck all, hope you get lots of money back!