Tax season always stirs up extreme emotion in people. It’s stressful, unpleasant and a downright nuisance. Despite a few billionaires who would be happy to pay more to the government, I can’t really think of anybody who wants to let go of their hard-earned money. I know I don’t.

This year I actually earned some money through blogging. Don’t go crazy or anything… it was some nice pocket change but it wasn’t enough to change our lifestyle any. I was lucky it compensated for the the expense of hosting my blog and traveling to conferences. The great thing about earning an income as an freelancer or independent contractor is that when you sit down at tax time, there are a string of deductions you can take to soften the blow. It’s amazing how expensive the cost of doing business really is. Even if that business only generates a small income.

We’re pretty fortunate that we have an amazing CPA who has handled our taxes for us for years. My husband has been an independent contractor since before we met so we’ve never had a traditional easy tax form to fill out. We’ve always taken all kinds of deductions that only an experienced accountant can handle for us. We’re both a little mathematically challenged.

My part in this whole thing is to get everything prepped for the big annual accountant visit. Our CPA loves me because I am always so organized and have every expense written down for him. My big issue, however, is that I don’t add things up during the year so I’m stuck with stacks and stacks of receipts and invoices that I have to go through and add up. How do I do this you may ask? I do it the old fashioned way - I use paper and pencil.

I am always looking for a decent pencil to work with. We are a house full of pencils. They are all over the place. I find pencils in the kitchen, in the bathroom and in the garage. They are on the floor, in drawers and yes, I find them in the laundry basket. But… despite the multitude of pencils around my house, I can never manage to find one that actually has a point on it! I think my kids eat them. Seriously.

We are forever sharpening pencils. And it doesn’t help that we have a very inadequate pencil sharpener. In other words… it’s crap. I knew that if I was going to be working on our taxes I would need to get a new pencil sharpener. Off to Walmart. Check out my Google+ shopping experience.

I purchased an X-ACTO Spiro pencil sharpener. I had no idea that X-ACTO even made pencil sharpeners. I thought they only made scissors and knives. AND… did you know they were part of Elmer’s? The same Elmer’s of glue fame? The Spiro Sharpener was pretty classy as far as sharpeners go. I can’t remember ever being impressed by the design of a pencil sharpener.

We keep our sharpener in the kitchen since that is the one localized place we can all get too. The kids usually do their homework on the kitchen table where I can supervise them.

I usually do most of my writing on my vanity table in my bedroom.

But… when I need to do the hard stuff (like sort through boxes of receipts) or I want to get my craft on… I head to the home office I share with my husband.

If your family goes through pencils like we do, then I’d check out the X-ACTO Spiro pencil sharpener. X-ACTO is offering a coupon for $3.00 off the Spiro. At my Walmart it cost just under $20.00. A pretty good deal for something that gets so much use in our house.

You can also follow X-ACTO on Facebook and follow Elmer’s on Twitter. If you love crafting, they are always posting amazing new ideas and products.

 

 

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. All opinions are my own. #CBias #XACTO