This whole post is just FRET FRET FRET, in case you want to go read something else. I would not remotely blame you. Maybe you would enjoy Bibliomama’s funny post about subbing in the school office? Kids say funny things about blood; and she forgets to ask a teacher’s name and has to come up with a description of him for the principal on the fly. Or perhaps you would rather read today’s Questionable Content, which is an accurate rendition of how I send care packages.
On to the frets. I kept waking up every morning with a sick adrenaline feeling about phone calls I needed to make, but then Not Making the Phone Calls, which started to seem as if I was deliberately stretching out something unpleasant to make the unpleasantness last as long as possible, which struck me as stupid, so today I Made Two of the Phone Calls, and also discovered it was too soon to make the others.
First I called the dentist and made appointments for all of us for August, by which time I have HOPE of us being vaccinated—or at least that a lot of OTHER people will be vaccinated, including presumably the dentist and staff. Or if things don’t look good as we approach those dates, I can reschedule. But at least the appointments are MADE, and I will not wake up tomorrow imagining everyone else having the same idea, so that the receptionist says “Oooo, yeah, no, everyone else is all of a sudden trying to come back too? so we’re booking into February? Maybe more like March.”
One reason I was so stressed about the call, by the way, is that there are just so MANY of us. With things like this (appointments we need seven of, or in this case six because Paul makes his own; fast-food orders for seven) I fret that I should do it in two separate batches so it won’t be So Much, but that just seems weird. Still, the receptionist always says things like “Hang on, let me write all this down” and “Okay, now WHO’S next?” or whatever. Does she do that if someone calls with a family of four instead of a family of seven? My guess is no.
(Wait, hang on a second: I am sensing that one of you is, RIGHT THIS MINUTE, thinking of informing me that my two eldest kids can actually make their OWN appointments, you know. Oh, girl, you KNOW that I know! And one sweet day, not long from now, we will transition to that. That day is not today, but you can bet your boots I DO have it in mind, and I look forward to it the way I looked forward to my kids being able to fasten their own seatbelts.)
Then I called Elizabeth’s allergist: she has to have an annual appointment/paperwork session with him or the school won’t let her attend in person. My working assumption is that there is a good chance she will be going back to in-person school in the fall, so I wanted to get that appointment made for August too—but when I called, they said they weren’t booking out that far yet. Which reminded me that that’s the same situation with the pediatrician: those appointments were on my list to make, but the pediatrician’s office only books 2-3 months ahead, and I think that’s the case with the eye doctor too, so if I want August I can’t book until May or June. SWEET RELIEF. NO MORE PHONE CALLS FOR NOW.
Now I can go on to worrying about my taxes. I never know when it’s safe to assume that all the paperwork has arrived. I remember hearing/reading that most forms have to be sent to taxpayers by January 31st, which means it would be pretty safe to assume it had all arrived by mid-February, but we have some investment thingies that send paperwork much later than that for reasons that appear to be reasonable/allowed. And then last year, the person doing our taxes emailed and say “Hey, did you guys do an IRA contribution this year?” and we HAD but we didn’t have any paperwork for that, and maybe paperwork isn’t SENT for that? Maybe we just have to know to tell her? I don’t know. My lack of knowing is one of the reasons we finally started having someone else do our taxes, but it doesn’t resolve all the issues, because she only knows what I tell her (or, with time, what we did/had in previous years), so I can still make mistakes. I am trying not to worry about it too much. It’s not like I’m going to fail to remember something BIG. Probably.
[P.S. I am so glad some of you are mentioning that we have to claim the stimulus payments because I DID NOT KNOW THAT and WE DID NOT RECEIVE PAPERWORK. Now I am low-grade panicking because I don’t know what we received for the first payment, or when, or how to find out. (It was sent on a scammy-looking debit card that turned out to be legit.) (Okay, whew, Paul was able to find out how much it was.)]
[P.P.S. I am still locked out of my Target account.]
I spent all of Monday morning trying to get a dentist appointment, for a dental semi-emergency that happened (of course) on Saturday. My dentist is a one-man shop, a “country dentist,” if you will, and his wife answers the phone, so I figured that when no one answered the phone it was just busy, being a Monday, and I kept calling. Finally after 8 calls (and my heart rate rising on each call), I double checked the phone number and, wouldn’t you know, I had it wrong. It was on the INTERNET wrong, so I have a bit of an excuse. Anyway, miracle of miracles, he could see me yet THAT DAY, and solved my non-emergent, but very annoying dental problem. For now. A crown is in my future, but this will hold me for now.
Taxes! Don’t worry about missing something big. This is what they do all day*, and they will catch something, especially — as you said — if something seems very off from last year. It’s always a game I play with myself to try to not have someone from the accounting office call me, and some day I will win. This was not the year, though. I got a very nice call from a young woman at the accounting office, who said that I had indicated on my “tax organizer” form that we didn’t receive any Covid stimulus payments, and she checked, and it appeared that we had, in fact, received TWO such payments, direct deposited to this account ending in XXXX, and did we actually get them? Of course, we did, and I don’t know how I missed it on the form, but they caught it for me.
*My tax accountant says this is his happiest time of the year. Can you imagine? I guess that’s why some people are accountants, and others are…not.
Also, while we’re on the subject of taxes, I would like my other half, and all such folks, to know that handing off the tax prep to someone else is not the piece of cake that it sounds like to the one who is not organizing all of the documents and lists and forms that have to go to the tax preparer. It is hours of work that you can’t even imagine, and some day I will make you sit down next to me while I go through the GRIND so you will know.
OMFG YES TO THIS FOREVER
Just because I am the grownup who is BETTER at the gathering part does not mean it is EASY OR QUICK, and in fact it usually fills me with such rage when I then have to address 8000 followup questions from the person I am PAYING TO DO THE ACTUAL FILING WORK FOR US, when 7999 of them are CLEARLY SPELLED OUT IN MY PAPERWORK AND NOTES JFC ARE YOU READING ANY OF THIS????!?!?!?!?!?!?!? And the other grownup looks at me like, what is the big deal, and also can you just answer his emails? NO!!!!
Blah blah busycakes tax season. THIS IS THE JOB. DO NOT MAKE ME DO THE JOB FOR YOU. I have spent a lot of time making the job as easy and straightforward as possible for you! I will happily answer any and all questions that are legitimate questions – something seems wrong, or missing, etc. DO NOT ASK ME HOW TO BREAK DOWN THE CHILD SCHOOL PAYMENTS WHEN IT IS LITERALLY WRITTEN RIGHT THERE DIRECTLY ON THE FORM YOU ASKED FORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I’m fine. Everything is totally fine. I’ve strayed a bit off your topic, but STILL FINE.
Busycakes 😂
Second busycakes <3
I had an accountant do my taxes ONCE. He ended up not asking for something that I noticed he should have and it saved me an extra $500 he had missed. Once I added that to the fact that all the hard work is amassing the information and putting it into spreadsheets to hand over to him, and the fact that I had really paid him to notice things and ask for them, which he failed to do, I thought “screw that”. Never again have I paid anyone to do my taxes. If I have a question and can’t find the answer online I call the Canada Revenue Agency directly and proceed on their advice.
At the height of complicated taxes I had salary income with tax forms from 2 different provinces, salary from just my province but for which I had employee expenses, my small business income and expenses, capital gains, and property rental income and expenses to process, and I still did it all secure in the knowledge that I trusted myself to do it right more than I trusted an accountant.
Yes to this! Mine is going to be super complicated this year, but I still want to do it (actually, turbotax is my friend). I haven’t even begun because I am dithering about hiring someone or not and I don’t want to go to all the work to organize which I would have to do either way. UGH
I have been avoiding the dentist like the plague for a few years. And in November a tooth that the dentist had flagged several years ago as a potential root canal proceeded to really hurt. So I ended up at the emergency dentist for a root canal that went pretty good except I think the root canal dentist caters to low-income/no insurance people, so he gave me an offer of pulling the tooth because it was cheaper and I was like no, you can just slap a cap on that sucker. No real point to this story except that the root canal wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and I think I had been having low-level pain in that tooth for quite a while because I am still noticing how nice it is not to have tooth pain. (In November I was flossing and something that didn’t seem to be food dislodged itself and a few weeks later I was dealing with pretty significant pain.)
Regarding the taxes, I’m sort of annoyed because you have to claim the last stimulus payment (which is fine) but I don’t remember what I got. It would be nice if sent you a notice on that.
I’m also dealing with a lot of phone calls and all related to my car, which has decided to have several minor things go wrong at once. My check engine light came on. I have a rip in the seat that needs to get fixed, the cover on my side mirror came off so that needs to be replaced, and I have a small dent in the hood that needs to get fixed. All are minor and pretty cheap fixes. But all require 4 different calls, 4 different appointments. The good part is I will have a car that looks like new at some point. I’d like to get it all finished before we go back to the office for work, but that’s probably in 4 months.
I received two announcements from the IRS about the stimulus funds. The latest one came this week.
We did too. I think it is a confirmation to make sure we really got it? It was a nice reminder though.
My husband has been fretting about taxes since early January (as he does every year.) He’s been making me crazy asking when we are going to do them. I finally told him we would do them in March to make sure we had all our paperwork. It’s my understanding that you SHOULD have received all your paperwork by January 31st but I can tell you that doesn’t always happen; as we received something relating to taxes about a week or so ago.
Phone calls are the bane of my existence BUT if I have to make one, I’d much rather deal with a human right off the bat and not have to navigate a phone tree to get to a human.
I brought my son in for his 14 year checkup recently. They told me that starting next year, he will have to call to schedule his own appointment, along with a little explanation about how that helps kids get ready to take responsibility for their own healthcare as adults. I love the idea and I wonder if they see many 15 year old checkups?
Oldest just turned 18 and our doctor’s office just advised us that, as a result, we can no longer “act for a minor” for him and he has to set up his own account and make his own appointments. There is a good chance he’s never going to go to the doctor again. Possible exaggeration but maybe not…
Might I suggest making a list of each paper you send to the tax person, so that next year you can use it as a checklist to make sure you have them all?
Also you can probably download a copy of most of them from the account websites even if they ALSO mail them- I just go through each of my accounts and print off whatever is in the documents tab and assume if it is not posted there I probably didn’t make $10 of interest or whatever their cutoff is.
For stimulus its not that you have to claim it (as its not taxable income) but more that if you didn’t receive the full amount you should’ve of you get a tax credit). You can go to IRS website, make account & log in to see what you’ve received.
I do taxes, and if you call (or email) and ask I can send a questionnaire that goes off last year and lists everything you had. Every software produces those, so your tax person should be able to give you one if you think it would help. And all of you, please be nice to your tax person. Probably YOU gave me all your forms and a nicely filled out organizer and the amount of both your stimulus payments, but I just finished doing a return where the person sent me information in two different portals and then dropped off a stack of receipts. And since there are way more of that kind of client, I may occasionally ask you something you already told me. I’m sorry.
I would also assume that tax people vary as to where they land on the read-things vs. ask-you-everything-twice scale. But still: be nice to them. But it is maybe okay to scream inside your heart…
Phone calls are THE WORST. I had to call to renew a prescription on Monday. Today, when the pharmacy still hadn’t called to say it was ready, I had to make ANOTHER call to find out what was going on. Last time there was an issue, I called the doctor’s office and they said that yes they HAD submitted the prescription and I needed to call the pharmacy. So today I chose to call the pharmacy first, and the tech very sternly asked me if I had called the doctor’s office to see if they had submitted the prescription (like, after they originally said they would call it in?)… well, no, I never know WHO to call first when there is some mix up, so I picked the pharmacy this time. (It turned out it was the pharmacy’s error, so I didn’t have to make a THIRD call AND the tech treated me much more nicely once she’d discovered the issue.) (There is an issue with this prescription EVERY SINGLE TIME.)
Anyway, kudos to you for making the calls you did, and huzzah that several of them can be RIGHTLY postponed!
Can I share a GOOD fret? As in, a good problem to have, but nevertheless fret-inducing. We offered on a house, and it was accepted! And it’s the house I wanted, hooray! But NOW, when will we move? Will we end up paying an extra month of rent on our current house because our landlady is a stickler (probably)? Will the appraisal be very different from the agreed price? Will we be able to afford to do anything to the house (ie remove wallpaper ftlog) once we own it? Will the inspection(s) reveal anything terrible?? Aaaah. Now, let’s have good, soothing thoughts about how it’s an easy, in town move (and actually I like moving), we’ll be in a good school zone for my currently-pandemic-homeschooled kindergartener, and it has a good yard. But sooooo many hoops to jump through and phone calls and emails and money and aaaaaah.
Oh YES, there is NOTHING like a move for sheer level of frets!! SO MANY. And for SUCH AN EXTENDED TIME. Even if it’s a WONDERFUL AND MUCH TO BE DESIRED move, it’s still just LOADED WITH FRETS!
I just wanted to come in here and say that I am sure we don’t get as much gruff as a family of six or seven, but when I call to make dental appointments, I still the get huffy “WHO’s next,” as if the receptionist at a joint adult pediatric dental clinic had never made appointments for a whole family at the same time before.
Oh, that IS good to hear! Perhaps anything more than ONE appointment gets the “HOW many appointments are we making???” attitude!
Yes. I only have two kids, and it seems to stress out the scheduler at the pediatrician. I suspect she has both other phone lines flashing and a patient standing in front of her whenever we call. I also think the software for scheduling doesn’t necessarily link family members— must be nice to be a young, single male software developer— so any frustration you’re sensing may be directed at the computer not you.
Taxes are so annoying. We went through it all, including finding out we need to file in a second state because my husband’s company screwed up*, only to find out we qualify for the standard deduction and that’s it. All of the hunting of information was wasted time.
*We live/work in Arizona. His company decided he lives/works in Oregon. All of his state taxes were taken at the Oregon rate and sent to Oregon. No, he never looks at his pay stub, so he never noticed.
I had put off a phone call to my Pension Centre for a very long time because it pertained to some information on my pension that was supposed to be available in my online account and wasn’t and wouldn’t be very relevant for a number of years yet, but I decided to just do it yesterday. And then the amount they quoted me didn’t make sense. And they agreed it didn’t make sense, and asked me to call the Pay Centre to look into it. So I called the Pay Centre and they were all, huh, that’s weird, but to fix it I have to call the Pension Centre and ask them to ask the Pay Centre to look into it and I couldn’t just call and ask them myself. So I called the Pension Centre back, explained it to another person, they looked at it and discovered that their system thought I made zero dollars for almost a year and that’s why the numbers were off, but they couldn’t correct it and had to send it to the Pay Centre, though at least this time they could point out the specific problem so it should be fairly quick and easy to fix.
Whew! Now all I have to do is keep an eye on it and follow up in a few weeks with yet another phone call, because I still won’t have the information I was originally looking for until the error is fixed.
My taxes aren’t causing me stress yet but I am getting an annoying amount of phone calls from tax scammers. Once I had about 7 calls in one day. Even if I block the number it appears as a different number next time. I sure hope others aren’t getting sucked in!