Voices

Food & Taxes: Be Prepared!

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[IMGCAP(2)] Some of you will be able to relate to this.

These last two weeks - between tax season, basketball games, and life, we have had take-out or just grabbed “whatever” for dinner every night of the week. 

My kids know it’s tax season because the evening texts start with “When are you coming home?” and “What’s for dinner?”  

My teenagers, now 15 and 14, have lived through, well, 15 and 14 years of tax seasons. They know how their normally somewhat organized mother has meals usually ready for Dad to prep. But when January comes around, it seems as though take-out becomes the go-to.

Besides it being unhealthy and expensive, it’s one more annoying decision that has to be made at 6 p.m. when I’m already exhausted.

I’ve decided that this has to stop.

So, this past weekend I got an idea: I created a plan for evening meals for the next five or so weeks. This should take me almost halfway through tax season.  

I found a blog on how to make 20 freezer meals from Costco. I paid the blogger $5 for the grocery list and recipes.

This past Saturday, all of us - my daughter, my son, my husband and I - shopped and prepared all 20 of the freezer meals in about three hours.

So for the next few weeks, I can actually say I know what’s for dinner. Every morning, I just have to dump the bag into the crock pot and go to work.

My teenagers have already started to grumble about not getting take-out and I’m sure come March I’ll most likely also be tired of these “freezer meals.”  But for once as tax season really starts to rev up I feel like I have a good plan to take “one more thing” off my plate (LOL) so that I can focus on work, customer service, and tax season opportunities.  

What most people who are not accountants don’t get about tax season is the impact it has on your “real life.” That tax season work for the most part is challenging, energizing, and fun in the SICK way. It’s everything else about life, especially for a dual-career working family, that makes it so difficult.  

So here’s my challenge to you: Think of one thing you can take off your plate to make tax season less stressful. Go ahead, do it!

And if you have any tax season recipes you live by, share them in the comments!

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