Taxes and Earrings

Today is the last day to vote for the April challenge. http://www.etsy_beadweavers.blogspot.com/ My entry was Dancing with the Sky. Please vote for your choice; it's hard to pick just one entry!

I am a great procrastinator and always owe money on my tax return, so I file late. I under estimated the amount of time it would take for me to prepare my records from my business, so I skipped a listing and an entry here. So I have listed two very bright earrings today--orange in carnelian and indigo dark blue plus a pair with fire opal and jonquil. Wonder if subconsciously I wanted to light a fire under the Chicago Bears. Not a sports watching fan, so I doubt it. Lots of high schools have blue and orange for their school colors, so if there is a graduation or birthday gift on your list these earrings may be the solution. I'm really fond of the fire opal color and today I was the one who needed the fire lit under me as I'm tired from little sleep and all that number crunching yesterday into today. And I used to be a CPA!

I forgot to mention that I received a check in the mail from the Illinois Museum Society for the sale of a pair of earrings at the Illinois Artisan Shop in southern Illinois. They were Swarovski white pearl with light blue sapphire crystals. I sent them a collection of blue and white items plus a lavender set for spring. I thought of setting up a bridal section in my shop after I sent them.

Swarovski Peridot Green Earrings

I listed these earrings mid afternoon today trying to make up for my late late night post yesterday. Curious about etsy searches, under handmade I searched for Swarovski crystals and found more than a hundred thousand entries. So I tried peridot earrings and found my earrings at the bottom of the first page..this was a few hours after they were listed. Tonight I tried green earrings and found mine at the bottom of page 19, there were 627 green earrings listed since mid afternoon, say in 9 hours. Wonder how many of them sell? They were all different, too. Some looked like red, blue and necklaces, but for some reason were in green earrings.

My conclusion is that you do need to list often in order to have people see your items. You also need to use appropriate descriptions but more creative--not far out though or no one will see them. So are my earrings asparagus green? and would you search for asparagus when you wanted earrings? Peridot was not in my vocabulary before Swarovski and my jewelry making.
Asparagus search yielded 317 listings, including super hero capes made by wildasparagus. I didn't know people sold vegetable seeds on etsy. Have you ever seen an asparagus pebble? It's on etsy.

Think I could use my time better? Valid research to me. But honestly I'm still procrastinating doing my business schedule C for my 1040. I've been using my credit card--got a strange look for a $2.19 expenditure at the post office today; if I paid cash, I would not get the deduction as the receipt would probably get lost. So I've categorized my expenses from the credit card bills. Sales I've worked on as they were made, plus I have my checkbook. It's the mileage calculation and those little receipts I have yet to do.

I am glad I procrastinated. We always seem to owe, but this year my quick and dirty calculation was close to $1,000 more and on lower income due to furlough days and pay cuts. There is a new deduction I would have overlooked; file Schedule M and get a tax credit of $800 for a married couple. I can sleep better knowing I don't owe as much as I've thought since last January. Sorry I was blaming my husband's employer for withholding a lot less this year; it was the President who had the withholding adjusted so we would spend it...I guess it helped make up for the loss of income this year.