Freelance Taxes : I owed $3,000 on my taxes : Bundle

As a freelancer, Cheryl didn't think too much about taxes. Whoops

Name: Cheryl Lock
Age: 26
City: New York , NY
Profession: Editorial assistant

Two years ago, I spent about three-quarters of my year working freelance, which meant no one took out money for taxes. I was making about $13 an hour, plus overtime, and I had some money saved, so when April came around, I thought, “Oh, that should be enough.” An accountant friend did my taxes, and when she called to report how much I owed, she could barely tell me. “I have some bad news,” she said: I owed $3,000. Some people will say I was naïve, but I felt completely blindsided. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I'd saved $2,000, but that was my total savings, and I didn't want to use all of it in case something happened.

I also really didn’t want to have to go to my parents, because I’d already borrowed some money from them when I first graduated from college. So I borrowed $2,000 from my grandmother and paid the other $1,000 myself. I’m still paying her back. That’s the year we got a tax rebate of $600, and I turned around and gave that directly to my grandmother. Every now and then I give her $50 or $100, but I still owe her about $900. I need to set up some sort of automatic system to pay her something every month, but it hasn’t happened yet.

I have a full-time job now, and I'm much, much happier not having to worry about how much to put aside from my paycheck. The whole tax process seems confusing to people who don’t understand it, like me. I feel like stomping my feet and slamming my door about it, but really, I could just learn more.

—As told to Kate Ashford

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