</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
It's tough to realize that you are in business for yourself and yet failed to factor in taxes everyone must pay.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Sounds a little snipey if you ask me. I DO pay my taxes, just on a different schedule and that is approved by the IRS. I DID factor them in, until my CPA screwed up and told me I had more money available every month than I really should have. I used that extra money to buy necessities, like a car when my other one finally died. When I came up short the next year and didn't have 5K just lying around, I had to get put on a payment schedule, which took away even more money that was allotted for taxes. It snowballed from there.

When living expenses go up and income doesn't, there's only one place to go - credit cards. When credit card bills keep rising and the limit is maxed out, there's only one other place (for me) to go - the taxes. I can't not pay rent. I can't not pay my car payment. I can't not pay phone, utilities, and cable. I can't go without food or clothing, and I already spend very little on both of those things. Remember a few weeks back when I said I do most of my shopping at thrift stores?

If I make more money, then I lose any government benefits for low to middle income women - like a free Pap and mammogram every year. I'd also lose my earned income credit on taxes that saves me several thousand dollars owed, because I'm less than $100 a year under the cut off as it is.

I didn't come here asking for suggestions. I was freaked out and needed some support. It's hard to cut costs on frivolous items when you don't buy them in the first place. Cut out my daily $4 Starbucks coffee? I don't buy it in the first place. Brown bag my lunch instead of going out? I work at home. I don't eat out for lunch. Car pool? I don't drive to work. Stop going to the movies and rent instead? I don't do either. I get movies free from the library or watch what's on TV. Turn down the heat and turn up the air conditioning? I don't have air conditioning. If I turned down the heat, I'd have icicles upstairs because it's a gravity fed furnace. It's uncomfortably cold up there to begin with. I used space heaters this past winter to help out the main furnace and ended up getting hit with another $50 a month on the utility bill because I'm on the budget plan and I used more than they budgeted me for. Spend less on clothes? I already go to Goodwill for myself, and I shop the sales for my kids. Cut out other forms of entertainment? I already have. Get a roommate? There's no room for one, and my life currently isn't set up to have another noise maker around here. It's already next to impossible to get any work done when the kids are demanding my time and attention and making so much noise that I can't hear the dictation. I don't need someone else stomping around the place.

I've spent the last four years a prisoner of my house because I didn't have enough gas money in the budget to allow me to go to town more than once a week. With gas prices constantly rising, even that's become a stretch. If I need money to cover something extra, it has to come from somewhere else. You try telling two teenagers that we can go to town or we can eat for two days, but we can't go to town AND eat for two days. I live paycheck to paycheck and have no emergency funds. Not everyone has tons of disposable income at their fingertips to cover unexpected expenses.