Good morning, friends!
How are your taxes coming along? How many people have yet to still file them?
Lucky for you, Tax Day hits on the 18th this year instead of the 15th, so you get a few extra days of scrambling. And lucky for the gov’t, they now don’t have to share it with the 2nd best day after Payday.
Welcome to National “FIGURE OUT WHERE ALL YOUR MONEY IS” Day!
(or for the fiscally aware, National “Net Worth” Day)
Filing taxes is fine, but imagine what will now happen since everyone’s forced to pay attention to their money each year?! How much stress and confusion will be lost, while wealth and confidence gained? How closer people will get to their dreams as financial management is brought to the forefront?
It’s a most glorious day, my friends, and since it’s fully backed by the F.B.M.I. (Federal Bureau of Money Investigation), all citizens must follow suit or suffer the consequences as set forth herein.
The rules of N.F.O.W.A.Y.M.I.D. – similar to Tax Day:
- Every citizen must file by April 15th whether they like it or not
- Anyone who disobeys will have their #’s flashed above their head for each day late
- Extensions are granted, but only to those busy hustling or killing off their debt
- “Randomly” selected audits will occur to anyone in financial despair (with support from certified financial planners and select personal finance bloggers)
- All banks will remain open for 24 hours and waive any outstanding fees
Founded to give everyone an accountability partner, N.F.O.W.A.Y.M.I.D. will rely on the foundations of net worth theory, and require only one page to be submitted each year:
All submissions will be burned upon receiving (after getting a star sticker next to your name, of course) and you will be free to forget all about it until the following year.
Only you won’t, because once you know where you stand YOU CAN’T HELP BUT WANT TO IMPROVE! Which is the beauty of tracking your money – you’re no longer in the financial dark. And for those who increase their wealth by 10% in a year, a free donut coupon will be mailed out requiring redemption :)
To get a head start on 2016, print off and mail your current net worth statements to:
ATT: Net Worth Division
Federal Bureau of Money Investigation
One Million Dollar Way
J. Moneyville, U.S.A. 90210
There’s no escaping the financial truth now, everybody! Get ready for a brighter future!
——-
*Paid for by The Society of Personal Financial Bloggers… Who also brought you International Be Proud of Your Money Day (October 19th) and the critically acclaimed Debt Is Not Forever solution.
PS: If you’re just getting started in your journey, here are a few good resources to help track your money. Doesn’t matter which route you go, just that it ends up sticking!
- The "Budget/Net Worth" spreadsheet - the colorful Excel template I personally use.
- The "Money Snapshot" spreadsheet - a simple Excel template I created for my former $$$ clients
If you're not a spreadsheet guy like me and prefer something more automated (which is fine, whatever gets you to take action!), you can try your hand with a free Empower account instead (formerly Personal Capital)
Empower is a cool tool that connects with your bank & investment accounts to give you an automated way to track your net worth. You'll get a crystal clear picture of how your spending and investments affect your financial goals (early retirement?), and it's super easy to use.
It only takes a couple minutes to set up and you can grab your free account here. They also do a lot of other cool stuff as well which my early retired friend Justin covers in our full review of Empower - check it out here: Why I Use Empower Almost Every Single Day.
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Haha that’s great, love this post! What a great idea though, that would really turn the light on for some folks. I can’t wait for my free donut!
The Green Swan
You earned it! :)
lol. Good stuff. Donut? Can you e-mail me my coupon?
Sorry, this is still the government we’re talking about so expect to see the coupon in the mail in approximately 4-6 weeks :)
Love this LOL! We’ll review ours on our money date tonight to make sure we comply ;)
Knowing your numbers can be freeing. Even when I just started and had a ton of debt, I felt more empowered having a clear idea of where I was.
We do a monthly review to make sure things are squared away and if we need to adjust something to reach our goals.
Thanks J for encouragement!
Awesome idea on the money date night! Especially if there’s a *reward* a the end, if you know what I’m saying (and I think you do! :))
Ha ha! Now the real kicker would be if the USA is flooded with mail heading towards Moneyville! Wishing everyone good luck and hope we all get our stars. Now am I really required to redeem that donut coupon?
We filed our taxes in January and received a nice sum of what we’d overpaid, without interest, from Uncle Sam. We learned that my husband had never changed his withholdings after three years of marriage, which explains the excess returned to us. Not sure why we didn’t notice in years 1 and 2, but probably we were in the glow of being married and blissfully happy. We are still blissfully happy, but more attentive to long-term goals and net worth! Tax withholdings corrected for 2016, which means we have more options for even more bliss and more happiness.
Good luck to everyone filing this weekend!
The trick now is making sure you do something productive w/ that extra money each paycheck or else it’s better to keep it coming back in chunks each year! I’ve got no problem with loaning out free money if it forces me to save/invest more in big chunks :)
I could get behind this except I wouldn’t count on my submissions actually being burnt upon being received. It would be a very interesting idea to somehow force/encourage people to actually do this at least once per year. Thanks for getting my brain moving first thing this morning!
J. I hereby declare the Largo Family net worth as of April 15, 2016 to be $158,919.02. This value being comprised of $274,772.22 in assets and $115,853.20 in liabilities.
Congrats on being the first person to file! You will receive not one, but TWO donut coupons in the mail – lucky you!
Great idea! That would easily be the best tasting donut I have all year!
I haven’t sent my check into the gov yet, holding on until the last possible minute.
When I review my cc statement next month you are getting blamed for the donut.
Good luck to everyone filing this weekend! I’ll be out attending a gardening workshop on how to grow f%^#ing awesome tomatoes this weekend during a blizzard.
Colorado is weird.
YES. And there’s also talk of this holiday taking place monthly.
Get out of town! Are you trying to kill me with excitement???
I love this idea! I know so many people who are kind of oblivious to their financial situation because they’re overwhelmed or afraid to know. I feel for them in that situation, but in the end there is so much more fear associated with NOT knowing, and of course then you can’t grow and move toward solutions. Net worth day would be a great starting point!
Fee donut?! I’m in!
Also, Canada wins again- we have until April 30th to file. Woot woot!
I’ll be filing this weekend anyway, I’m a nerd like that.
Very good stuff.
I love this idea! I know so many people who are kind of oblivious to their financial situation because they’re overwhelmed or afraid to know.
We have filed our taxes and already spent the big refund of $205.00 on getting the carpets cleaned! I always shoot to break even….I just hate the thought of an interest free loan to the government from me….they get enough of my hard earned money :)
I am going to work towards the free donut for next year! High priorities…..
Typical government bureaucracy relying on snail-mail rather than email! ;) I’ll be eagerly awaiting my donut return!
Yeah, gotta fight your battles…. you wouldn’t believe what I had to do to push this official day through, whew!
A star sticker next to my name?! SOLD! I’m a millennial after all.
Already did our taxes and with the refund we financed a 2016 Chevy Silverado 4WD! Man you outta see this truck. It only gets 16 MPG but who really cares.
No we just did something boring, we paid off more debt, but seriously I need a donut I’m starving
Haha… I was about to say!
Oh man. I SO wish this was a thing!
Taxes? Pffft. I did those back in Feb. and already got my refund of ~$180 towards the beginning of March.
Good idea and hopefully the readers will adapt it going forward. It takes a certain fiscally responsible person to really track NW like a killer or else its all a big sort of # in millions of peoples head.
There are a lot of things I’ll do for a gold star sticker. Or really most stickers that mean “hey good job!” apparently my love language is validation, if that’s even a thing. Doing a financial health exercise, heck yeah#
Whatever helps stack those benjamins!
We just filed our taxes a day ago. It’s my 45th year straight that we didn’t owe and didnt get any refund. Well, we do owe like $100ish to Uncle Sam but close enough.
Good luck to all who are still working on their tax returns. Lucky for those proscrastinators for you got additional days to get your taxes done.
Nicely done!
Hahaha…I still don’t understand why people pay a company or someone else to prepare their taxes. Especially if all they have is W2. There should be a class in high school where teenagers learn how to prepare taxes for themselves and their families when they have kids…IMHO.
I know people that pay hundreds of dollars for this. That’s ridiculous.
That would be a class that’s actually useful!
I love having an accountant and wouldn’t change it for the world to be honest with you (she’s always saving me $$$, answering all my billion questions, AND saves me hours of wanting to punch myself in the face), but then again I always have a ton going on more than just a W2… I feel like as long as they’re being filed *correctly* AND you’re getting max savings from it, then you’re good whichever way you go.
Agreed… there are many professional people out there. Like you say, you have a lot going on. Most people just have a regular job though.
Filing taxes should be a simple process. You earn $$$, you pay % (the same for everyone). If you make a lot of $$$$$, you will end up paying $$$. No deductions, no exceptions….just my humble opinion…to make it easy for everyone.