Last week, I said I had decided to “incorporate,” as part of my accountability plan. This incorporation forms a business model to make me feel more accountable for my finances and does not constitute a real business. I have decided that the corporation will automatically dissolve if and when this blog achieves income of $1,200 per year. I feel that at that point there will be sufficient income to call it a business, rather than a hobby.

As of a few minutes ago, I have officially posted the promised articles of incorporation.

Wednesday night, I went online to one of my credit card companies to see if they had generated the bill yet.  I was happy to note that they did, but I discovered something that made me ecstatic…

They had lowered my rate by 5% from roughly 22% to roughly 17%, this was done without having to pick up a phone, dialing and asking (I’m a bit phone phobic, which makes that calling part difficult for me).

Interestingly enough, my previous post, How I Got Hustled, ultimately brings me to a decision I had to make, how to truly value my car. I was originally looking it up every month on KBB, but last night, I decided that that was too time consuming, so I decided to retroactively switch to a linear depreciation method (look out for more on depreciation later). Linear depreciation essentially takes the total reduction of an asset’s value over a specified period of time and divides it equally over equal time increments. I replaced the transmission at about 80,000 miles and I don’t plan on paying for another transmission, thus I plan on dumping the car by 160,000 miles. By June, I anticipate that I will hit the 100,000 mile mark, leaving me about 5 years at 12,000 miles per year (my average). This puts a total anticipated life of my car as 8 years or 96 months. Additionally, I have decided the scrap value will be $0, making the depreciation $134.22 per month. Retroactive application yields a current value for January as $9,127, far more than I could get out of it.

As part of this decision, I’ve decided that I will start running my finances as if my life was a business and every reader is a “stockholder.” This will not affect my taxes, since the government probably wouldn’t like me calling my life a business (they’d probably call it tax evasion), but as a result, it will make my financial reporting more streamlined. I plan on releasing an Income Statement, Statement of Cash Flows and Balance Sheet (I haven’t decided how I will value my “shareholder’s equity,” since I won’t get any actual money), along with goal progress. I will plan on closing each month on the last weekday of the month (Monday through Friday) and reporting by the 15th (or the first weekday thereafter) of the final month, with my fiscal year always ending on the last weekday of December. Watch for this to become “official” in the next week or two, with an “Articles of Incorporation” type post. Please remember though, my life and this blog will NOT actually be incorporated, I’m just trying to follow a business model for my life. Until this blog produces at least $100 per month (average for tax year), any income will be reported as hobby income to the IRS.