Shoutout to the spreadsheet trick that saved me $340 on my taxes this quarter

I've been struggling to track my mileage all year and missing a bunch of deductions. Finally set up a simple Google Sheet with columns for date, miles, and client name, and it took me maybe 10 minutes total. Has anyone else found a low-effort way to keep up with their business expenses?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_daniel1d agoTop Commenter

Honestly, I used to be in the same boat and thought tracking every mile was overkill. But once I sat down and actually ran the numbers from my quick spreadsheet, I saw I was leaving a couple hundred bucks on the table each quarter. It takes me maybe 2 minutes a week to log my drives now, so the payoff is totally worth it for me.

martinez.paul2h ago

Rolling my eyes so hard I almost pulled a muscle reading Kim's take. Yeah sure, let me just "guess a bit" on my taxes and hope the IRS doesn't flag my return. That's a brilliant strategy for anyone who enjoys audits and penalties. If you're leaving $340 on the table every quarter, that's over a grand a year. Guess Kim thinks that's pocket change or something. Honestly, if logging 2 minutes of data a week is too much work for someone, maybe they shouldn't be running a business at all. But hey, maybe we should all just "feel busy" by not tracking anything and see how that works out come April.

kimdixon1d ago

But is tracking every single mile really worth the hassle for most people though... I mean if you're saving $340 that's great but how much time did you spend setting up and maintaining that spreadsheet over the whole year. For a lot of small business owners the standard mileage deduction doesn't even come close to what you'd save by just taking the actual expense method and guessing a bit. Sometimes these penny-pinching tricks just make you feel busy without actually moving the needle much.