It’s been a heck-of-a couple of weeks around here, but I don’t think I’ve been this excited about things in a good while. Then again, I don’t think I’ve also been this wracked and torn and broken, either. Makes for a great story for the grand-kids if I can remember details like this. Never mind – I’m writing it down here!

On March 30th, I filed with the State of Florida to create a limited liability corporation: Petersen Media Group, LLC and immediately applied for my EIN to get a business bank account to bring stuff out of my PayPal account for easier accounting and purchasing. That was very exciting and we are still on a high from all of that. I’m following in some pretty solid footsteps with my family, since my grandpa ran a John Deere dealership for decades and both my aunt and uncle run their own businesses and my mom ran a home business for quite a while when I was younger. None of them are here to help, but things are rocking anyway.

I got a book on small investments and it had a chapter on when to save money and do your finances during the year. I choked when I saw the section about filing estimated taxes on April 15th and dug around to discover “unemployment taxes” and all kinds of other penalty-inducing crap from the IRS. This was one of the wracked and torn bits from my opening. [Read more…]