How to Get Organized for Tax Season

/in

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes!

It’s tax season! *Cue dreaded sigh* Tax season typically means it’s time to go through that massive stack of papers and start preparing your return. Keeping track of your annual income and expenses can be a stressful burden. With all the craziness this past year has thrown our way, don’t let this tax season and the IRS throw you any curveballs. It’s time to get organized. Here are a few tips to help you get through this year’s tax season stress-free.

Start by getting organized. 

If you don’t already track your paperwork in LifeHound, get all your information in one place. Ensure all the forms you have filed are completed accurately, ensuring there aren’t any typos or mistakes. Ensure your EIN numbers, social security numbers, and all other identification forms are accurately stated. Be sure to store all forms, invoices, and receipts in the same place. 

Keep track of things all year long

Tax season typically sneaks up on people. As the year goes you should be keeping all tax-related items together in either a file folder or folder on your computer. And we know, that can be overwhelming to find if you haven’t been doing so the entire year. It’s important that you start now so you’re already ready for next year’s tax season. 

After this last year, the line between business and personal expenses is blurrier than ever. Be diligent about tracking your expenses when they happen and be prepared for the IRS to pay close attention to those write-offs!

Avoid too many deductions.

Vehicle expenses, adoption credits, and home office deductions are all important deductions to consider, especially after this past year. If you are claiming excessive/unrealistic deductions that are disproportionate to your income and expenses claimed by others, it may attract IRS attention. Ensure all your deductions have documentation to back them up, and that documentation is stored in an organized manner. 

If you are a business owner, prepare W-2s and 1099s

As a business owner, you pay and withhold taxes from your staff all year. If you haven’t already provided your employees with their tax forms, you need to do so as soon as possible. 

Keep track of large charitable donations

 Charitable donations are a great way to help your community and receive tax deductions! Be careful about the size of your charitable donations, as a donation that seems too large for your income bracket can attract IRS attention. Non-cash deductions over $500 require Form 8283, be sure you have all the forms required for your specific donation. 

Tax season can be a breeze when you take steps to remain organized and prepared. LifeHound offers a one-stop-shop for all your tax season needs. Store, track, and update your forms and important documentation, so if the IRS does come your way, you’re ready. Sign up for free! Start your organization journey, and give yourself more time to enjoy your life!

How Many Life Skills Do You Have?

/in

How many life skills do you have? It’s time to find out! Take our checklist to see where you land on the ‘adulting’ scale. Whether you’re a novice, getting by, or you’re an expert, there’s always something you can improve when it comes to adulting. This is exactly why we created LifeHound. LifeHound is your life hack to organizing your important documents, deadlines, expiration dates, and more! Want to try? Sign up today, it’s free!

Are “Free Trials” really free?

/in

 We’ve all been there- you sign up for a 30-day free trial and input your credit card to get billed on the 31st day and you forget to cancel your trial. Yikes, there goes $60! With so many free trials out there, it’s important to understand what you may be getting yourself into if something like this situation occurs. 

Let’s start with an example.

Apple offered their customers who purchased a new iPhone received a one-year subscription to Apple TV+. Similarly, Verizon users on unlimited plans also received a one-year subscription to Disney Plus. When these customers sign up, they must agree to start paying for the services after a year. Many who sign up for these promotions likely have no intention of actually paying after the year is up. However, most of these customers forget to cancel and end up paying for the next year anyway. 

What’s even worse is that these customers might not realize they are paying for these subscriptions for months. What was once free, is now months of costly charges. 

How can you ensure your free trials are actually free?

Let’s start with how a free trial offer works.

Most free trials work on the idea that when you sign up for the free trial you put in some sort of personal information. For example, you see an ad on Amazon, and you are redirected to a page that contains fields for you to fill in. Once you have filled these in, you submit your information to receive the product or service. 

What most people skip on these pages are the terms and conditions. The terms and conditions typically state that if you do not return the item after 30 days or ca

ncel the trial, you will be charged in full. Leaving you to continue paying for the service or receiving another month’s worth of product. 

After the trial period has finished, and you’ve started on your 30-day plan, it can be extremely challenging to cancel. The cancellation policies may change after the free trial is up. Until you can cancel, you will be charged monthly or annually. 

How can you avoid free trial mishaps?

You must start by reading the terms and conditions before you sign up! Most companies don’t have your best interest in mind, which is exactly why you need to get all the information. Before your click ‘I agree’ take these tips into consideration…

Are “Free Trials” really free?

  • Free doesn’t always mean free. Inputting your credit card information is a sign that you’re probably signing up for something that isn’t free. If you do still want to continue with the free trial, understand exactly what those charges will be when they occur. 
  • Don’t forget to set a reminder once you sign up. LifeHound is a service that provides reminders when all your important documents, trials, and other important dates are coming up. 
  • Once again, don’t forget to check the terms and conditions before your sign up.
  • Lastly, if it seems too good to be true… it probably is. The products being offered may not always be up to the standard the ads are presenting. Stay on top of the trial dates to ensure you won’t be charged for a subpar product.

At LifeHound, our free trial is REALLY free. No credit card information is required. It’s time to stop falling into the ‘free trial’ trap. Keep track of your important trial dates in LifeHound and receive helpful reminders when it’s time to cancel. 

Adulting 101: Do you have the necessary life skills?

/in

Adulting 101: Do you have the necessary life skills?

Do you have the life skills necessary to score 100% on this quiz? Test your knowledge and see where you land! Regardless of your adulting level, LifeHound can help you stay on top of the necessary documents, warranties, and expiration dates that tend to be forgotten as quickly as they come. Start your free trial today. Sign up here!

Did you know you can’t travel on your passport less than 6 months before it expires?

/in

Picture this: You’ve been planning your 2-week trip traveling up the coast of Italy for months now. Before you get to the airport you go through your checklist: passport, check. Phone, check. Ticket, check. Luggage, check. You have everything, you’re ready to go! As you walk up to the check-in counter, the attendant informs you that your passport expires in less than six months and you are unable to travel. All your fun, exciting travel plans have gone out the window!

Wouldn’t it be nice to know when your important documents are expiring? Never again would you leave the airport without pizza, pasta, and wine in your belly. 

How can you keep track of your expiration dates that won’t occur for another 10 years?

Keep a Spreadsheet

An Excel spreadsheet is a great option that helps keep track of your upcoming expiration dates. You can organize your important dates into different categories and ensure all your dates are logged. The one area that excel spreadsheets can’t cover is reminding you of your upcoming expirations. In order for this method to work, you need to keep checking in with your spreadsheet.

Set a calendar reminder on your phone.

Calendar reminders serve to eliminate the reminder issue we spoke about above. You can input your due dates and set reminders in whatever calendar format you prefer. These calendar reminders are great when you understand when everything will expire. However, for an item, like your passport, which you can’t travel for six months prior to the expiration date, you may be missing the mark. 

Use LifeHound

LifeHound was created to remind you of these exact important dates that you need to be aware of. LifeHound has preset upload templates that help guide your due date reminders, in order to ensure your information remains up to date and ready to go when you are! LifeHound literally hounds you to get these documents updated with in-app reminders. What are you waiting for? Upload your passport, insurance cards, and driver’s license today! 

Did you know you can't travel on your passport less than 6 months before it expires?

Have you gotten your “REAL ID” yet?

/in

Like many states, California residents have the option to get the new REAL ID, which goes into effect later this year. The REAL ID will be used to board a domestic flight within the U.S. and enter secure federal facilities, such as military bases, federal courthouses, and other secure federal locations. If going through the application process is in your near future you better get ready to spend some time searching for documents. Here is the checklist for California: https://realid.dmv.ca.gov/your-real-id-checklist/ and it requires various sets of documents.  While the first set of documents you need to have one of the originals of, I think everyone should also have digital copies for backup and easy reference purposes for not only themselves but for everyone in their family including small children for those that apply.  Even for children these are often ask for to enroll in youth sports or other programs that require a proof of age and organizations often accept a print out or digital form.

  • Valid, unexpired U.S. passport or passport card
  • Original or Certified copy of U.S birth certificate (issued by a city, county, or state vital statistics office). “Abbreviated” or “Abstract” certificates are NOT accepted
  • U.S. Certificate of Birth Abroad or Consular Report of Birth Abroad of U.S. Citizen
  • Unexpired foreign passport with valid U.S. Visa and approved I-94 form
  • Certified copy of birth certificate from a U.S. Territory
  • Certificate of Naturalization or Certificate of U.S. Citizenship
  • Valid, unexpired Permanent Resident Card
  • Valid, unexpired Employment Authorization Document (EAD) Card (I-766) or valid/expired EAD Card with Notice of Action (I-797 C)
  • Valid/expired Permanent Resident Card with Notice of Action (I-797 C) or Approval Notice (I-797)
  • Unexpired foreign passport stamped “Processed for I-551”
  • Documents reflecting TPS benefit eligibility

Another key word that many of these documents have is “UNEXPIRED”.  It is important to track the expiration dates of these documents and renew them ahead of time, and not after they are expired. Therefore it is imperative to have a way to remind yourself before they expire. Users of LifeHound are never caught off guard with an expired document if they pay attention to the reminders it offers.
Here is the next set of documents on the checklist that one is needed:

  • Social security card
  • W-2 form
  • Social Security Administration (SSA) 1099 form
  • Non-SSA-1099 form
  • Pay stub with full SSN

Many people require their social security card for starting a new job to this case of getting a new ID.  Having a copy is important to have as well.  The larger question on this list is how many of you can find last years W-2 form from their employer in under 30 minutes?  While you used it for your taxes last year, did you save it and do you have a scanned copy of your taxes last year as well?  There are all important documents to save away each year.
The final step of the REAL ID process is proof of residency having to produce not just one, but a few items on the list.  Unless someone is really organized, kudos to you if you are, many people are going to spend some time scrambling through old files, and will have a hard time to find many of these items.  These may be even harder to find for a young adult who may only have a few.  A bigger question to ask yourself is if you had scans of these documents where would you store them?  While you could store these own your local hard drive, are they really backed up properly if your house burned down?  You should store them as pictures on your phone, but that does not seem very secure.  You could store them on a service like DropBox, Box, or Google Drive, but those locations could be accidentally shared, are not stored encrypted, and further they can’t remind you that your Rental or lease agreement is coming up for renewal.  This is exactly why LifeHound was designed to store important documents securely and it will remind you of the important future dates associated with them. Here is the list for you to consider capturing and storing properly today:

  • Rental or lease agreement with the signature of the owner/landlord and the tenant/resident
  • Deed or title to residential real property
  • Mortgage bill
  • Home utility bill (including cellular phone)
  • School documents issued by a public or private primary, secondary, or post-secondary institution, college, or university that includes the applicant’s date of birth. If using a foreign school document, it must be sealed by the school and include a photograph of the applicant at the age the record was issued.
  • Medical documents
  • Employment documents
  • Insurance documents, including medical, dental, vision, life, home, rental or vehicle
  • Tax return (either Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or California Franchise Tax Board (FTB)
  • Change of Address Confirmation by the U.S. Postal Service
  • Property tax bill or statement
  • Faith-based document that includes the name and address of organization
  • Records from any state or national bank, state or federal savings association, trust company, industrial loan company, state or federal credit union, or any institution or entity that has issued a credit card
  • Voter registration confirmation letter or postcard issued by the California Secretary of State or a local California county elections officer
  • Proof of payment of resident tuition at a public institution of higher education in California
  • An original copy of an approved Claim for Homeowners’ Property Tax Exemption (BOE-266) form filed with a local California County Assessor
  • Court documents that list the applicant as a resident of California
  • Letter attesting that the applicant resides in California from a homeless shelter, shelter for abused women, non-profit entity, faith-based organization, employer or government agency within the United States
  • A document issued by a U.S. government agency, meaning the entity, office, or authority governing over a country, state, county, city, municipality, district, agency, department, or any other political subdivision of a country or state
  • California Certificate of Vehicle or Vessel Titles or registration
  • A DMV No Fee Identification Card Eligibility Verification (DL 933) form, completed and signed

After you have gone document hunting and find these documents, please take the time to take a scan or picture of the documents and get them uploaded to your LifeHound account today.

What if you lost your wallet or purse?

/in

If you were to lose your wallet or purse tomorrow, how long would it take you to replace everything in it and could you?  Can you remember everything that is in your wallet or purse including credit cards, IDs, health insurance cards, or those membership, rewards, or frequent traveler cards that you have added over the years and not bothered to write down? If you are traveling and a credit card is lost or stolen how are you able to report it lost and do you have the phone number on the back of the credit card handy, even when you don’t have the credit card? While everyone can agree this would be a big loss and painful to recover from, it happens more than you think. Did you know that in a five year period around 10 percent of people will have lost their wallet?  The odds are much higher than you think, so why not be prepared for the possibility now.  Take the challenge this week that I like to call the “Backup your wallet challenge”. Don’t procrastinate and take the 20 minutes or less it takes with LifeHound to quickly capture the information and take pictures using your phone’s camera of all of the cards and information in your wallet/purse. LifeHound can also help you set reminders when cards or memberships are going to expire, so you are not left in an unfortunate situation. Life is hard enough, so don’t make it any harder on yourself and always have the information at your fingertips, even when you don’t have your wallet with you.

Too Busy to be Organized

/in

An interesting statistic I found recently is the average American spends one year of their life looking for lost or misplaced items at home and in the office, US News and World Report.  That is a significant amount of time, whether it is looking for keys, a purse or wallet, your phone or simply looking for important documents. Further, it is often at a very critical point in your life that you are searching for those documents that may be from 10 years ago. Therefore anyone that says they are too busy to find a way to improve their lives, when there is a potential entire year to be gained not searching for things, should reconsider the value proposition. Start now using LifeHound and start gaining back time you could be spending with family and friends. After 40% of adults say if they had more time, they would spend it with family, from a Day Runner Survey.  Enjoy life while you can with LifeHound.

Road to Organization

/in
I have seen this picture many times of what people think the path to success looks like versus what it really looks like.
When it comes to personal organization this started to resonate with me as well. However, the more I think about it the path is a bit different and has different  stages that may come in different orders or may not come at all.  Here is my take on the two paths.
Stage 1: Things start off fine early in life, when there is not much personal information or documents to organize. Having only a very few accounts makes it easy to keep track of it in your mind.
Stage 2: You start to forget about some of your accounts or need an account number or information for your first bank application or ID application. Then comes the scramble for information and the discovery that you are more disorganized than you thought.
Stage 3: You put something simple in place to organize some of the information you have like a spreadsheet or start writing things down and things stabilize.
Stage 4: The New Years resolutions happen and you get organized every January and it quickly falls off for the rest of the year.
Stage 5: A rough patch in life occurs, perhaps you lose a job, and the chaos begins causing organization to not be a priority and it hits an all time low.
Stage 6: Something in life happens like a death of a family member, a child needing information about themselves, or something important needing information that is incentive to get organized again, and somehow you manage to stay somewhat organized.
Stage 7: This is the all important stage. You find the right organizational method that works for you, is easy to keep up to date and it actually reminds you of important events to keep you on track for the rest of your life. This is where LifeHound comes it.  It is the tool that keeps you on track and continues to remind you to stay organized, learns your life, and hounds you to add more information to track to increase organization of your life for the rest of your life and to pass that on to your children.