death and taxes

In 2008, I was so very good about keeping records of my monthly expenses, itemized by category (office supplies, postage costs, shipping supplies, art supplies, book supplies), mostly since I was going to be filling out the schedule C and filing for the very first time without help from dear old dad. Every month I tallied everything up so that at the end of the year, it was already done and waiting, ready to be totaled up and plugged into the form. Last year, admittedly, I got a little lazy and didn't do it month by month (or at least not every month) so now I have to go into each month's receipts and tally everything all at once before I can even start the forms. I haven't yet seen if we've actually made a profit yet for the year, but it's entirely possible. Book sales were up signifigantly, and there were the burgeoning soap sales, but vintage sales on etsy took a hit, which was the biggest moneymaker in 2008. It remains to be seen if selling more smaller items makes up for selling less higher ticket ones. Now to just get through the rest of it by the end of the month. Then I can spend the first 15 days of April remembering how to fill out the forms.

For this year, the good news is that February sales were actually up from previous Februaries, both in the shop and the press website, which after last year of being down every single month from the previous year, is great news and hopefully an indication of good things to come.