What a bum-ache of a week. Three minor financial setbacks made me glum. If I were to check my horoscope, I bet it would warn me not to make any investments - the stars seem to be aligned against me.
Thoughts about income made me think about the complexities of next year’s tax return - a portfolio career is all very well until you have to deal with HMRC. Thank heavens, then, for my excellent tax adviser - an absolute legend. If you’re thinking of going freelance and, like me, have spent your whole career on PAYE with an accounts department to sort everything out, I urge you to get a tax adviser. Not only will they do all the hard work for you but the knowledge that someone competent is handling the numbers will let you sleep at night. And then you won’t have to turn all your receipts into a smart casual jacket.
Your tax adviser will simultaneously keep you out of trouble and check you’ve claimed for all your allowances - did you know there’s a ‘working from home’ allowance? No, nor me. Also, they’re great for over-thinkers like me - the most frequent answer to my questions is “you don’t need to worry about that” - if only this service was available for other aspects of my life.
There’s a school of thought that I should just learn to do my own accounts. Then I would sleep soundly and save a wedge of cash each year.
My new work-life has forced me to learn many things outside my comfort zone, professionally speaking. In some cases, I’ve been surprised at how easy the task is - my skills turned out to be more transferable than I thought. In other cases, it’s been nerve-wracking - I’d say it was imposter syndrome but it isn’t really because I’m trying something for the first time. However, I don’t think I’ve actually failed at anything yet - at worst I’ve had the sense it could have gone better but I’ve learned a lot from the experience and built on that.
While trying new things is not a problem for me, I’ve never been very good at practising. Sport, musical instruments, creative pursuits. If I don’t have a natural aptitude for something I tend to give up quickly. There are exceptions, when I get some joy from giving it a go even if the results aren’t exceptional. Baking, for instance. And, curiously, archery.
I guess that ‘quitter’ attitude is fine for leisure pursuits - unless I desperately want to become a musician, the fact that I still can’t play a guitar that I purchased in 1993 is neither here nor there.
Practising work-related tasks though is a bit different though, isn’t it? There’s value in persisting but a lot of the time we don’t even think of it as practising - even though that’s what it is: learning and repeating. You don’t think “today I’m going to practise spreadsheets”, you just get on with it, over and over again (and swear a bit). Until one day you hear yourself saying to a colleague: “I’ll do those spreadsheets if you like, I’m quite good at them.” And when it’s time to write your CV, you casually add “spreadsheets” on your list of skills. Another string to your bow. (I know, I know, I hate me too for that gag. I swear, I do really like archery - it wasn’t a set-up but the pay-off was too good to resist.)
So should I just learn to do my own tax return? Well, no. Three reasons:
I don’t want to become an accountant. There’s no part of my professional life that would be improved by learning tax law.
I can afford to pay someone else to do it. It’s not about the drudgery of it - it’s that someone else can do it better. If I want to hear music, I play the music by professional musicians - I don’t optimistically think “right, time to get that old guitar out!”
I don’t want to and you can’t make me. So there.
Main photo by Dark Rider on Unsplash
Stationery corner
Thank you post-it notes. A charming thing to leave on a colleague’s desk. But beware, you’d be surprised by how much someone can read into which box you tick.
Is het al vrijdag?