Spent 4 hours on a mileage deduction and I still got it wrong

Everyone says tracking miles is simple but I spent a full Saturday sorting through 9 months of delivery trips for my Etsy shop. I used the IRS standard rate and tried three different apps before giving up on all of them. Finally just pulled my Google Maps timeline and counted by hand which took another 2 hours. Total time was 6 hours for something people online claim takes 30 minutes. My calculation ended up being $847 in deductions but I'm not even sure that's right. Has anyone else found the real cost of tracking mileage is way more time than they advertise?

3 comments

3 Comments

jackson.max14h ago

Man I feel this deep in my bones. A buddy of mine runs a little print-on-demand thing from his apartment and he spent a whole Sunday crying over mileage for like eight months of deliveries. He said he tried every app out there and they all either glitched or wanted money after a free trial. He ended up just keeping a sticky note on his dashboard and writing down the odometer every time he left the house, which is simple but you gotta remember to do it. By the time he added it all up he was so sick of looking at numbers he just rounded to the nearest hundred and called it good.

robin89614h ago

Oh wow, eight months of odometer scribbles? That's insane dedication!

kevin_williams7h ago

Sticky notes beat spreadsheets any day of the week.