Why I Am Making Gretchen Insane

[billroper]

Apropos of tax day, I put together all of the final documents that need to be mailed and wrote a check for the tax payment for my father's trust (which I'll get reimbursed for later by the trust) and looked over various bits of paperwork from the accountant. And I came to understand why I have been making daisy_knotwise insane about money.

Not only have I been saving very efficiently so that I don't see large chunks of my paycheck, as I'm maxing out my 401(k) and throwing money at my employer's stock purchase plan, but it turns out that I've also been paying all of the taxes owed on my not-in-a-retirement-account retirement investments out of current cash flow rather than out of the investment income. While this is good for the retirement investments (to the extent that I'm told I can retire in three years, although I will believe that when I see it :) ), it is absolutely lousy for the current cash flow. And the current cash flow is what I'm managing to pay for all of the bills, including the ones that Gretchen pays where I periodically hand her a check to top her accounts back up.

Add to that the fact that the hike in the Illinois income tax rate is no longer being camouflaged by a Federal Social Security tax holiday. Oops.

I also paid kindergarten and preschool tuition for both Katie and Julie last year and for Julie this year, which is a bit more than $3000 per year.

And we picked up a $5000 annual car payment last year for the new minivan.

Understand that I understand that I'm actually well off. As Gretchen points out, I can pay all the bills. And we have assets, which is a really good thing.

It's just that my current cash flow has been negative for a while and I haven't dug into the numbers to figure out why. Now I have. :)

Comments

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

I'm not nearly in the overall financial health you are, but I totally grok the cash flow issues.

And I am keenly aware that despite my OMGWTFBBQ reaction to the size of the checks I'm writing today, the fact that I owe so much more in taxes than I did last year is because, yowser, I had a good year last year. A really good year. Best ever year as reflected on my tax forms. The steps that I took to protect myself from sticker shock come today were big, but they weren't big enough.

Now all I have to do is figure out appropriate quarterly payments for this year...and how to manage the unanticipated cash flow crunch that paying the rest of last year's taxes has put me in.

[billroper]

Freelancing is hard.

Good luck sorting it all out!