Can I pay the Feds in cookies?

Everyone in retail knows that one of the most important things to do is take inventory at the beginning of the year. As surprising as it may sound, the tax man doesn't take your word for it that you only made $5000 for the entire fiscal year or how much inventory is in your store, nor does he actually believe you when you swear up and down that you aren't second cousin to the mob with money laundering urges running in your bones. Yes, indeed, the tax man demands proof of your honest toil.

You should also probably be keeping track for the whole year of your inventory. With a computer system designed for this purpose.

We interrupt this program to announce this ground breaking piece of news: my son just asked for egg toast with ketchup. In other words: he's eating a piece of toast with an egg on it! I might pass out with joy...hold on...OK, don't worry, I'll be fine. I'm going to go weep in a corner now and be very very quiet so maybe he'll actually finish it.

And now, back to our regular programming... (does anyone have a cup of coffee around here?)

I have only just made an appointment with a CPA to do my taxes. Sometimes I feel like people will think I'm a princess to be hiring other people to do my taxes. I mean, what moron can't just open up quick books and do the data entry? Here we are in the middle of the DIY revolution, inching our way through the trenches, and I HIRE SOMEONE TO DO MY DIRTY WORK FOR ME? Yes, indeed. A couple of years ago I did our taxes again for the first time in a few years to prove to myself that I haven't gone soft in the head. I used Quickbooks and it took a long time though it wasn't really that hard.

However, I decided that it was well worth the money to pay someone else to do most of the work. Now that I have a retail store there is no way in hell I am going to do them on my own. We already have complicated taxes due to Philip's share in his family homesteaded farm in Louisiana from which he receives anywhere from $100 dollars in rent to $1000 dollars in rent a year. (His family rents it out to farmers and now oil drillers.) For this paltry sum of money we are required to fill out a whole separate complicated tax form. Even though the money Philip receives nearly always goes towards the lawyer fees the family must pay to negotiate the rental terms of their land.

Oh, you may notice how we have access to farm land and yet I keep whinging on about not having more property. You may be asking yourself how I could be so darned land greedy when we could move to Louisiana and stake out Philip's ten acre share, we could start farming soy beans right away and have even fewer prospects than we have now, so why aren't we there?

Because it's in Louisiana. Where there are no hills, very little for vegetarians to eat, and almost no people where his farm is. Plus the insects are all super-villain sized and the climate would kill me off in my first season there. That's why.

Back to the taxes...so our taxes are always complicated. Now it's even more complicated because last year Philip was on unemployment for part of the year, we sold and bought a house, we have a store for which we not only buy things from other companies, but for which we make our own products (so there's the wholesale supplies component too) and my head just hurts thinking about all the work I am going to have to do in the next few days to prepare for my tax meeting. I spent last night digging for all the merch receipts from opening the store to simulate a beginning inventory list, and now I'm going to have to do the same for the month of December when I should have taken another inventory for the needy tax man.

I don't expect to owe the tax man anything because there were no Capital Gains taxes applicable on the home we sold and we made only $5,000 dollars between the two of us last year. I'm kind of impressed by that. I haven't made so little in one year since before I was legally working. The money we spent to set up our little retail establishment is phenomenal. I don't even know the exact figure yet. Because I still have to add up the receipts.

You might be thinking to yourself right about now that I've been quite slip-shod in my business approach. Most people have a PLAN, and a known budget, and spread sheets, projected expenditures to contrast with projected sales for their first five years of business. And you should have all that. But here's the deal, if I did that, I would have found out immediately that there was no way I could afford to be in business and I'd be working at Wilco right now wearing tight Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots for the first time since grade school* and Max would have been in after school care too because my income would not have been enough and so Philip would be working at the local health food store as the underpaid produce guy who gets to rearrange a lot of really unfresh produce.

Instead of which we've had this incredible adventure that may or may not end in us having spent all of our home equity line of credit, liquidating the store, and getting underpaid jobs at Wilco. At least I will have had this amazing experience before having to sell my house and rent a little apartment with no yard. No one will ever be able to call me a coward. No one will ever be able to get away with calling me unadventurous.

A business plan and a binder full of information on how to run a business and report to the tax man before zero hour would have been the smart thing. But the smart thing wasn't going to work for us. We had to go in a little blind. That's the only way to crash and burn or come through to glory. For us, I mean. Just like when we got married. If I had known too much about Philip and his foibles, and if he had known just how crazy I was BEFORE getting married, if we had this marriage plan and a regular wedding instead of running off to Vegas, we never would have married. Of this much I am certain. Then we would have missed out on an incredible opportunity.

But for the rest of you out there, I suggest you be prepared. You may not be crazy enough to wing it and face the consequences. If we come out of this summer still in business, if we make it to the next Christmas buying season, I kind of think it could be declared a miracle. I don't know how we'll do it. If I do the paperwork, the financial planning, which is always hovering very close to the edge of my consciousness, then I will know for sure we can't make it. If, however, I close my eyes and just keep moving, we might....we just might make it to the other side of business. The part where people are ordering on-line every day, where we can barely keep up with our sales and where we are paying all of our rents and mortgages and don't have to sell our house or do something else.

I will say that I think this town would like us to succeed, which is a great feeling. We are doing way better in this spot than in the last one. We have lots of repeat customers. People are coming to check with us to see if we have what they need. We're taking notes about what people need. I know that if the money doesn't run out first, our store will make it. I can feel it. We are certainly filling a niche. People get excited when they come in.

There are all kinds of lessons you can learn from us. A lot of them contradict each other. Pick what works for you. Use us as a cautionary tale, or an example of idiotic bravery. The American Dream as we all have perceived it is fading fast, commerce and opportunity for everyone is disappearing daily, so if you want a piece of it, you better grab fast. Even if we have to sell our house in the end, we won't regret having tried for this dream. In other posts about our business some people have wondered if there's anything that makes having your own business worth pursuing, since so much of it is an uphill climb.

I will say this: it's the ultimate DIY project. It gives you the great satisfaction of having built something that is deeply meaningful to you. It makes you think and dive into your creative spirit more than any other job. It's easier to come to work every day when you know that you can, if you want to, decide not to take people's crap. As an owner, you are motivated to please people so you tend to be cautious about insulting people (unless you're me and you do it all the time on your blog), but knowing that if someone is putting their boot all over your face, you can kick them out, is wonderfully empowering. It's deeply satisfying to have made something that other people enjoy. I walk down town and look across the street to my store and I can't believe that Philip and I put that together between us, this colorful, cheerful store full of wit and practical products. We did it.

Yes, it's satisfying. That's why we've kept at it so far. That's why I am flying as blind as possible. If I look at the paperwork right now, if I make actual budgets, I will find out the dream ends tomorrow. I have more power not knowing. There's more room for magic to happen, for luck to blossom, if you aren't trying to count your fortune out. It's not the way all good businesses are run, but I would be dispirited to know how close we are to not making it.

So I will slog through this clumsy tango with the tax man and turn my face brightly towards April, the beginning of tourist season. I will turn my attention to the future where all things are possible because nothing is known. I see us coming through, even if it is by the skin of our teeth.

And I may need to increase my medication.


*I haven't worn a pair of jeans since the sixth grade. I despise them on me. If you ever see me in a pair of jeans (overalls don't count, I could possibly wear them if they didn't make me look like a giant snuffaluffagus) then you will know for sure I've gone over the deep end. Don't follow.