put 2007 to bed (financially)

Letter written, tax forms and financial information accompanying it have been put into an envelope, stamped, addressed and dropped in the mailbox. 2007 records have been carried out to the garage. 2002 records have been shredded, and the shreds of paper are bundled up. A friend will use them for packing material when he gets tools ready for a trip north; then when he arrives will use them as kindling for his fireplace.

So this goal has been accomplished.

Very little left to do on this. I just have to print out the various reports from my financial program, print out the letter, sign it, put it all into an envelope, etc. Hopefully I will have it in tomorrow’s mail.

I hope to have the shredding of 2002 finished by tomorrow evening as well. The I’ll be able to mark this DONE.

My 2007 paperwork is about 99% in order. I shredded about half of 2002 so far. The only thing I haven’t done yet is write my letter to my accountant.

I didn’t do the tax reports yesterday, as I said I would. I did it today, though, so now it’s done. Whew!

I know what I spent in 2007, what I spent it on, and what part might be tax deductible (I leave the final decision up to the tax preparer). I know how much debt I retired and how much money I saved.

Next step: write cover letter.

I will finish my 2007 Summary of Income and Expenses. If I can zip through that, I will also write a first draft of my annual “Year-in-Review” cover letter today. Then I can sit back and wait for the arrival of the various tax documents that I’ll need to include when I send all this stuff to the CPA.

I’ve got 2007 boxed up. It’s just sitting on my dining table, awaiting the few straggling receipts and reports that will trickle in in the next weeks. The next task is to run the TurboTax and see what errors crop up. The final numbers can be run in February when the documents from my 2007 income come in.

I want to get this out of the way very early this year. I’m going to get my financial records in order, get my tax info ready to go to my accountant as soon as I receive my forms, box everything up and have it ready to go into storage by the end of the month. Maybe sooner. Oh, and I will have the records from 2002 pulled out of storage, shredded and carried out to the recycling.

I am starting this today and will work on it a little bit each day until it’s done. That should do it, but if I need to give it more time per day to meet my deadline, I will.