tutorial {organizing your home office} #XACTO

Welcome to my home office. 
For you guys that read my blog regularly it should
look pretty familiar because it also doubles as my craft room! ;)

Annnnd if you read my blog
you also know we have 5 kiddos, too.
So our 4 bedroom/2 bath home is full!
Every room is filled to the top with kiddos, toys
& all their fun stuff which doesn’t leave
much room for anything else especially office work. 
Buuuut just because we are short on space
doesn’t mean we can’t be organized!
(Actually it probably means
I’ve got to be a little more organized!) :) 
Annnnd tax season is upon us!
So I’ve really got to be on top of that!
Thought it would be fun to show you some tips
on how I keep everything organize & easy to find.
So when tax season rolls around I’m ready!

First up & the most critical thing you
need for tax time is all of those important papers.
I love these file folders you can find at Walmart. 
They are closed on the sides.  So important things
like receipts & bills can’t slip out.  Love the colors, too!
I label each one, so I know where to put what papers. 
Since my blog is actually making a little money now…yay!
I added a folder for this year labeled “blog”. 
I’ll keep all of my receipts, expenses & payments
in this folder throughout the year, so next year I’ll be
able to document everything when it comes time to pay taxes.



The second thing you need on
hand is plenty of office supplies. 
When you sit down to do your taxes
the last thing you need is
a broken pencil with no sharpener
or to be out of copy paper or printer ink. 
Make sure you have everything you need. 
I love to stock up when school supplies
are so cheap at the beginning of school,
and since I had a coupon (Yay!) I recently
picked up an X-ACTO Spira pencil sharpener at Walmart.
Oh my goodness!  It is sooooo fancy! 
By the way it comes in fun colors, too! 
I chose basic black…but they also have red & white!
(Did you know that X-ACTO is a division of Elmer’s??? Yep, it is!) 

Click here for your coupon for an X-ACTO Spira pencil sharpener.
   

You can check out more of my shopping trip over on google+.
Annnd yes, we took 4 of the 5 kids…those kind of shopping trips are always an adventure.

Finally, the third thing you need to
have are those very important tax forms
and access to tax help if you need it.
I know a lot of people don’t have
lots good things to say about the IRS
but they really do have an awesome website. 
You can find answers to questions, research topics
& download & print just about any tax form you’ll need. 
I have also used several popular
tax software companies to do our family taxes.
The right tax software can really make it easy.
If you have extra income coming in from a blog or etsy shop
most of these programs can walk you
through the process of filing your taxes. 
Many local community centers & libraries also offer free tax help.  :)
Just check around your local community,
& I’m sure you can find some help if you need it!

So hopefully with just a little organizing tax time goes a bit more smoothly!

So how do you organize for tax season?

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias

All opinions are my own.