—You may hate it, but I consider it a moral imperative to feed the beast as little as possible,
and not taking advantage of all tax breaks possible is giving them more money and power to reduce your freedom.
It may cost me $500 to save $100 in taxes, but Ive done things like that.—
HAHAHA! I’m worse. I buy almost ALL non-food items used from garage sales, auctions, estate sales, etc. Usually no sales tax. I have been reducing my spending as much as possible. It’s easier to voluntarily reduce your spending than it is to voluntarily reduce your (taxable) income, but I finally did the latter too.
I cut it (taxable) by ~$40,000 a year. I moved to a much lower income area and actually live better than I used to. So taking the standard deduction is a piece of cake now. I also just bought a tractor and we’ll be living almost exclusively off what we grow at our new property. This includes chicken/eggs, beef, and fruits and vegetables.
God designed us as gardeners and, although I am still a cubicle rat, we spend so much time with “rural” activities that I am just “naturally” losing weight as I lost weight in Seattle when I bicycle commuted.
Sounds like my plans in the works - bought the land, building a house, getting a tractor, going to deduct as much as I can creatively deduct as “farm expenses”.
Don’t forget to record some “income” from your farm by selling some eggs, vegetables, firewood, or some such,
then make sure to depreciate all your equipment out against your already lower income.