Never in a million years did I think a platform that I began creating content for would end up replacing my job as a psychologist and allow me to work from home with my babies. I am so grateful! This is my FIRST full year going at this content creator/entrepreneurial gig and I know the learning curve is going to continue to be steep!

I want to take you all behind the scenes as intimately as I can. There are no hard and fast rules on owning your business and everything I have learned up until this point has been completely self-taught.

First of all, you should know that I am terrible at spread sheeting; accounting, photo, calendar and email management, and basically anything that has to do with computer organization. I am knee deep in listening to podcasts on this very topic, Maria Kondo”ing” the crap out of my house and trying my very best to stay on top of all things financial this year.

It’s time to take control of my financial story and stop skipping steps when it comes to business organization.

I have BIG dreams, which I share in my vision board below. But there are a lot of things that I am really nervous about. I am going ALL IN and putting everything I have into Love & LaRock this year. I am trying not to panic, take it one day at a time and trust that I am on the right path.

The last I want to do is overcomplicate things and wait until the last minute to “get it together.” That’s why when TaxAct reached out to partner to help educate others on ways to NOT dread taxes, take charge of them and empower others to take control of their financial story, I jumped on the opportunity because while I teach you, in turn, it will also help me stay accountable so I don’t hit the panic button on April 15th!

I want to do my taxes as quickly and painless as possible. I want the BIGGEST tax return I can possibly get so I can continue to provide for my family financially and be able to stay home while doing it.

I am a HUGE believer on manifesting what you want. If you don’t put it out there, how will the universe know what to provide??

VISION BOARD 2019

Below is a VISION BOARD that I have for myself in 2019. I am optimistic that the money I get on my return this year will help fund some of these ambitions and daydreams!

I would love to know which items from my vision board speak to you? Comment below! I would love to hear from you.

And in the meantime, take a look at some of these resources that are exclusive to TaxAct. I had no clue these types of tools existed and plan to utilize them while I gear up for filing.

Tax Calculator: This took me literally 3 minutes to fill out and helped me gauge how income, withholdings, deductions, and credits impact my 2018 tax refund or balance due amount.
Tax Bracket Calculator: Gosh, I feel like such a big kid when I think about knowing which tax bracket I am in. I kind of can’t believe that I am the adult in the family doing this. I used this handy cheat sheet/calculator to find out which bracket we were in. This is good to know because the tax bracket you fall into will determine the tax rate you are required to pay on your income.
Self-Employment Resource Center: This was designed to simplify self-employment taxes. I am so thankful this exists. Through the Self Employment Resource Center, you can learn all about TaxAct’s Deduction MaximizerTM, which is available in their Self Employed+ product. This feature helped me to take advantage of the deductions available to me as a blogger like writing supplies and expenses to create content and help me account for business-related travel and costs!
Self-Employment Tax Calculator: I have always relied on my employer paying half of my Social Security and Medicare taxes. But moving forward, I will be considered self-employed and will be responsible for both portions of these taxes. Eek! This calculator helps me calculate my total tax liability so there aren’t any surprises!

To sweeten the deal, when filing with TaxAct you can place any amount of your refund on a gift card from one of their select partnered retailers and TaxAct will give you a bonus of up to $100. They offer gift cards with Amazon, AMC, Sephora, Gamestop, The Children’s Place and so many more!