rowyn

After posting my monthly update, I panicked a bit over how much there was to do. In particular, I really needed to get taxes taken care of quickly. I work on April 4, my friend is visiting on April 5 and leaving on April 8, and my sister is coming to town on April 9 and leaving on April 13. If I didn't want to be stressing out about taxes during someone's visit, or dealing with overloaded websites on the last days before the deadline, I needed to do them ASAP.

But of course it was too late on Monday to work on it, so I told myself I'd do it on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, I negotiated with I Don't Wanna and got myself to collect the various forms and stick them in one place, and told myself I would find a website for tax filing on Wednesday. I stayed up late playing Time Princess and Apothecaria instead.

Today, I got up a little after 8AM and watched V's stream. After the stream, I decided to...take a nap. Because I'd stayed up late. I could deal with taxes after nap.

My nap was cut short by a call for Lut from a medical provider. After the call, I gave up on more nap, got out of bed, and sat down To Deal With Taxes.

My first stop, as always, was https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/ . If your AGI is under $79,000, tax prep software companies are required to give you free tax prep software, no matter how complicated your taxes are. My taxes are pretty ugly, between my inheritance from Terrycloth and my author income, but my income remains well below this threshold and I refuse on moral grounds to support the tax prep industry. The tax prep industry that lobbies Congress to keep taxes complicated and to provide no easy mechanism for paying them so that they can stay in business. Seriously. Not funding those guys.

Anyway, you have to go through the FreeFile link because if you get to a tax prep site any other way, they can tell you " you might be eligible for free filing!" and then have you spend two hours completing your taxes on their site and then say "Oh sorry you don't qualify for this free version but you can pay us $$ and we'll file it using the info you supplied and the paid version." Because you did not get to the real FreeFile site.

Because tax prep in the USA is a dystopian nightmare.

This year, FreeFile recommended 1040 dot com (I'm not giving it as a link because, as above, you should always go to https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/ to get your tax prep software if your AGI is under $79,000) because they'd file my state taxes as well as federal taxes for free. State taxes are not included in the federal law that requires free federal tax prep. The Missouri state tax form is pretty simple but it's still convenient to have a free e-file option. Saves me the trip to the library to print it.

As tax prep software goes, 1040 dot com was pretty nice. Their paid version is only $25 and that covers both state & federal, I think. They handled my weird complicated taxes gracefully and didn't make me answer ten billion questions about things that don't affect me. (They had an option for 'walk me through every possible step' but I did not choose this route. The other route was 'pick the categories from this list that look relevant to you', which was much less unpleasant for me).

I got sidetracked from the tax-filing mission by the recollection that it wasn't too late to contribute to an IRA for 2023 and also that I wanted to do this. So I went to my financial service's website to make a contribution. I found a transact button that looked like I could use it for stock purchases but it wasn't clear I could make IRA contributions. I found a contribution button that didn't give me the option of asking the funds be debited from a bank account.

After ten or twenty minutes of poking about the site in confusion, I gave up and called them. A very kind rep (thank you, Brian) walked me through getting my bank account added to my IRA account. The process mysteriously failed twice ("now I feel like your system is just harvesting all my verification question answers"), and then just as mysteriously succeeded on the third try, just before we were going to try the slower manual route instead.

With my bank account now connected, Brian tried to walk me through using it to make a contribution to my IRA. I still didn't have an option for debiting a bank account. Brian: "Looks like it hasn't updated on your end. No worries, I can see the account on my end so I can just post the transaction for you."

This accomplished, I went back to the 1040 com and discovered it had logged me out for inactivity. I logged back in and then struggled for a bit to find the place where I'd left off; I still had to enter my ACA health insurance form and 1040 com was acting like I should proceed to filing. Eventually got it sorted, though. The final tally was that the feds owed me a big refund and I owed Missouri a smallish check. I don't know why it works out that way. I over-withhold on my paycheck because I fear unexpected income and I value peace of mind more than the interest income I'm losing by giving the feds an interest-free loan.

I filed the forms and then set out to figure out how to pay my state income tax, since my state wouldn't let me provide a bank account on the tax form to debit, the same way they'll credit a bank account on the tax form. I found the state's online payment portal, which charged 50 cents to debit my bank account. I tried to find an address to mail a check for a bit, and then decided it was worth 50 cents to stop looking and used the online payment portal.

All of this took around two hours, which isn't bad given the ridic nature of income tax filing in my country. Emboldened by my success, I set out to figure out how to pay estimated quarterly taxes. I've been able to escape those thus far because my writing income was only a small fraction of my regular salary, and I could (over) cover it through withholding at my workplace.

My writing income is still a small fraction of my regular salary, but my regular salary is like 35% of what it used to be. Investments are my primary source of income now. You can set up withholding on investment income but my investment income is gonna be Real Weird for various reasons and withholding is not a great option for handling it. Thus. Estimated quarterly tax payments.

The IRS had an option for sending them money by setting up an account through ID.me. This involved taking photos of my driver's license and then letting ID.me use the camera on my phone to video my face. Several times. Until it was finally satisfied. This felt ripe for dystopian abuses but at least I got my taxes paid?

This took another hour. Declaring victory, I made lunch and then realized I had to pay state estimated income tax too.

x_x

I ate lunch and spent 20 minutes figuring out how to pay the state estimated income tax before doing it the exact same way I'd just paid the additional 2023 taxes, just with a different drop-down option or two.

After all this, Lut asked if I'd contacted La-Z-Boy about the broken loveseat yet.

...

SURE LET'S DO ALL THE HORRIBLE ADULTING THINGS.

Lut and I use a powered reclining loveseat in lieu of office chairs, in front of the table that holds our computers. A few weeks ago, the frame suffered a serious breakdown on Lut's side. The seat is a few inches lower on his side than on mine now, the footrest can no longer fully retract (because the seat is too low for it to fit), and it effectively can't recline anymore: if he tries to put the footrest up, the back goes flat. This is, in a word, terrible.

We spent a few days searching online for a replacement: a powered reclining loveseat with no cupholder or other divider in the middle, that was rated for Lut's weight, and that would fit in the space available. We found one (1) option, and I didn't particularly like the look of it. Beyond that, getting the current loveseat out and getting a new loveseat in will be a production. I don't mean "because Lut and I will have to carry it" because ha ha no of course I will pay professionals to do that. No, the issue is that with the way my house is presently set up, it's not possible to get a loveseat from the office to outside the house (or vice versa). Lut's painting desk is 2.5 feet from the main door. Mounds of Kill Team supplies are piled under and on top of the table directly behind the painting desk. Basically, to make the house navigable by a loveseat, we have to:

Move 20-ish boxes of miniatures and accouterments out of the living room
Collapse the 6'x3' folding table and move it out of the living room
Move the coffee table that's under the folding table out of the living room
Move the gigantic office arm chair out of the living room
Empty the desk
Move the desk to where the table/coffee table/piles of boxes currently are
Move the end table out of the living room.

Bear in mind that there is no other place on the first floor where any of those things will not be in the way, so either I have to put them all in the basement or they have to block traffic somewhere else.

After considering all of this, I remembered that La-Z-Boy used to have an in-home repair service, where they'd send a tech to your house and the tech would fix it on site. I didn't know if this service still existed, but it would be so much better than trying to remove the loveseat from the house and get a new loveseat in place. Also, even if we got a new loveseat, I'd rather get it from somewhere local where I could sit on it before committing to spending $$$$ on it. Maybe the La-Z-Boy in-person reps would be able to give me a clearer answer on the weight limit for their new loveseats than I was getting from online stores.

With this resolved, I did nothing for like two weeks.

On Monday, I finally called La-Z-Boy. They didn't answer the phone, so I left a message. They didn't call me back.

Today, after Lut's reminder, I tried using La-Z-Boy's online contact form. They called back almost immediately. (While I was eating lunch, actually, so I think I must have munged the timeline for today somewhere. Maybe I paid Missouri taxes while lunch was cooking?)

The in-home repair service still existed! The salesperson at the store told me the repair service was expensive and also that the hold times when calling them were excessive. I decided to go for it anyway because of the horrors of trying to move that loveseat.

After 40 minutes of listening to the same 1-minute loop of music while on hold for repair service, I was having second thoughts. I made Lut turn off his video and listen to the repeated 1-minute loop of hold music while I left the room to try to regain some lost SAN from today.

Seven or eight minutes later, Lut let me know the rep had answered the phone, and I returned. Victory! After some time on the phone with the rep, we have scheduled a virtual appointment for 4/22, which, oof, is longer than I wanted to wait to find out if it the loveseat even can be repaired. On the bright side, it turns out the frame and mechanical parts are still under warranty, so (assuming it can be fixed) we'll only have to pay for labor and shipping.

And also we won't have to upend the entire living room.

After I got off the phone with the repair rep (a delightful gentlewoman, honestly, I had three phone calls with service people today and they were all so pleasant, I could almost get to not hate phone calls), I told Lut, "I don't know if I want to take a shower now or exercise first."

"Go for the trifecta and exercise," he said.

So I did the 10-minute aerobics video plus stretching, which is my minimum viable exercise. I was very stressed out from all the adulting and figured exercise would help with that. After showering, I sat down to write about my day to finish decompressing.

I feel extremely productive and happy about that. Still have a bunch of appointments this month and visitors coming and whatnot, but the taxes and the loveseat were some of the most stressful things and at least they're done for now.