I love being self-employed. I don’t have to punch a time clock, and my commute is now so short that I often walk in warm weather. It’s rewarding, but it isn’t easy. The hours are long. I forgot what vacation is. I can’t call in sick, and if cash flow is a little slow, I’m the last to get paid.
It’s also tough to know how much I’ll owe Uncle Sam come April 15th. I make estimated tax payments every quarter based on what I what I have been making, what I think I will make, and eventually I pay on what I actually did make.
Usually, it’s pretty close and I only owe the tax man a little bit, or he owes me a couple bucks, but this year I had extra expenses. I added new signage, added several part-time employees, and moved the business to a better location. With these additional costs, I ended up paying in too much. I have money coming back.
From My Shelf Books & Gifts officially opened its doors for business in July of 2006 with only 3,000 books on the shelves, mostly used, but with dreams of filling the 800 square feet, top to bottom, with books. Running a bookstore is an act of love, and any money I happen to make, I use to express that love by increasing the number of books I have available.
Yes, as a bibliophile I usually use my money to buy more books. So, what am I going to do with this year’s tax return? I’m going to use it to take my wife to the Philadelphia Comic Con. My wife works with me, and sometimes we practically live at the bookstore. We both love books. We both love to read, but we also love stories.
That’s why we love watching Castle on ABC. The protagonist is a best-selling crime novelist. He tags along with a homicide detective squad for both inspiration and accuracy. The show contains insight into a writer’s mind and there are often cameos by real life best-selling authors-such as James Patterson and Michael Connelly.
There are also fun and geeky references to movies, books, popular culture, as well as not so subtle reference to Nathan Fillon’s previous television show, Firefly. Before he was Richard Castle, he was Captain Malcolm Reynolds and this June he’s going to be at the Philadelphia Comic Con…