Not a huge achievement, but finding the time and energy was a struggle, and I spent weeks beating back the temptation to just send the bank records to a pro.
BACKGROUND: In the spring of 2014, right around the time I found MMM, I co-founded a partnership with two other guys. Through this LLC, in addition to my own investments, I now own a third share of two duplexes, and we will be speeding the pace of acquisitions once we flesh out our new rehab-based strategy. We're all very cost-conscious, so we strive to maximize DIY activities. Since I have a personal tax prep background, I volunteered up front to be the accounting/tax guy, but I'm still learning as I go and everything is harder the first time around. On top of that, I've been busy as hell - we're renovating one side of our latest acquisition, I have my regular full-time government job as well as the Air National Guard, I'm working a couple of real estate deals, and I can barely find enough time with my wife to keep us on an even keel. I knew it would be slow going, with all the new rules I'd have to learn. I procrastinated for weeks and had to repeatedly talk myself out of just hiring an accountant. Finally I found a slow day last week and spent most of it working through the LLC return and attendant schedules. Most of the time was just reading through the instructions for each line and cross-checking online sources to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. In the end, the return is done and my careful planning ensured we booked a loss through well-documented expenses and front-loading of 2015 costs. Call it a small personal triumph, but I feel pretty f'ing great about it.
