About David McRee

I'm a 3rd generation Florida native with a love of the beach and with a habit of taking on a lot of projects. Professionally, I am a Certified Public Accountant, but I have finally realized that I was not meant to do one thing all the time. Working the same job for 8 hours /6 days just doesn't work for me. So I do several things, fairly well.

I have something of an obsession for using the internet as a tool for learning and sharing and connecting. Information overload is a very real problem for me. I'm learning how to pick the right tools to get the job done, whatever the job may be.

My main interests are writing and blogging, beach photography, digital video, doing business online, simple web design, tax strategy for the self-employed, tax law for charitable organizations, anything beach related.

I've created a website on Florida beaches, a website on St. Pete Beaches, and I write and blog professionally on the subject of Florida beaches for the State of Florida's VISITFLORIDA website.

Book Review: Making a Living Without a Job

When I was stuck in an office building, looking out at the blue sky, wishing I were free to come and go as I please, I often dreamed of being self-employed again. One of my biggest inspirations was this book by Barbara J. Winter.

She subtitled the book "Winning ways for creating work that you love." In the first chapter of the book Barbara makes the observation that everyone used to be self-employed, until the Industrial Revolution took hold and people started moving from farm to factory. Then she tells the story of how she launched herself into the world of the self-employed. Barbara adds some really helpful lists of questions to get you thinking about what kind of work you might like to do, and she really helps you understand how your life will change and what new thoughts and experiences you will have as a self-employed person.

One of the strong points of the book is that Barbara uses lots of real-life examples of people who have made the move to self-employment. I'm not talking about lots of "rags-to-riches" stories, but stories of people you can identify with.

Barbara really stresses that you should do what you love, what you are passionate about. And, she helps you figure out what that might be. There are so many different ways to make a living, and Barbara does a great job of giving examples and opening up your mind to the possibilities. Most of the business ideas she talks about don't require much in the way of start-up money or a lot of know-how.

One of my favorite chapters is "Overcoming the Obstacles." There are many things that stand in the way of us taking that leap to the self-employed life. This chapter's sub-headings reveal the most difficult obstacles we encounter:

• You Get Erroneous Advice From People Whom You Care About


• You're Afraid To Try Something You've Never Done


• You Don't Believe You Can Make Money by Having Fun


• Your Ego is in the Way


• You Have Too Much Money or Current Comfort


• You're Stopped by Not Knowing How

Barbara is a proponent of creating "multiple profit centers." The idea is that you can have more than one profit-making activity in your life. For instance, after I quit my job with the accounting firm, I taught salsa dance group lessons and private lessons, prepared tax returns and did accounting work, and did contract writing work and paid blogging.

Eventually what happened is that the tax/accounting and writing/blogging gradually became much more profitable and I phased out the dance instruction. It's hard to juggle multiple businesses for a long period of time.

In Chapter 8, Considering the Possibilities, Barbara goes over the advantages and disadvantages of providing personal services, selling information, landlording and leasing, mail order, and selling a product.

Overall, this is THE most inspirational book on becoming self-employed that I've ever read. But it is not just inspirational, it is filled with real-life examples and practical advice that will pay for the book many, many times over. In fact, when I bought the book, I already had over 10 years of experience being self-employed, although it had been a number of years prior. I learned a lot.

This book is one of the most tattered and worn on my bookshelf because I carried it everywhere I went for years and read and re-read it. Even now I still find it inspirational and practical.

Barbara has a great website for the joyfully jobless!

Getting to Know the Self-Employed

As I may have mentioned, getting to know self-employed people can be inspirational and motivational. We were invited to a Solstice party a few days ago by an acquaintance. We met Tim in a yoga class that my fiance was teaching a few years back. Tall and youthful, although probably at least in his late 40's, Tim's interest in yoga and his friendliness and openness and generosity set him apart from most people we meet.

Tim, we found out, has a used car lot, which we knew little about. One day, Tim decided that he needed a yoga studio closer to his house with classes in the evening that would fit his schedule. So he approached some of the yoga teachers and offered to lease a space and set up a studio if they would teach classes and take ownership of it.

That's how we learned that not only did Tim have some spare change, he was also very handy with carpentry, and did not hesitate to take on a challenge and complete it quickly with a smile on his face. Nor was he afflicted with the curse of micro-managing anyone. He stood back and let the yoga teachers develop the studio and classes, but he was there when needed.

Fast forward a year to the Solstice party. We visited Tim's house and found out that he had originally purchased it as a little 650 sq ft house 20 years earlier, and had added on gradually, doing much of the work himself, and supervising the rest. It wasn't fancy, but it was creative and roomy beyond the modest square footage because of the 10 foot ceilings throughout, and an indoor garden/hot tub / yoga room complete with a giant clamshell fountain. And a winding steel staircase leading to a screened treehouse/patio on the roof. All this he did while running his car lot and taking care of his family.

We also found that he had invested in multiple rental properties in the neighborhood. Never have I met a more down-to-earth, sincere, hardworking guy than Tim. After all the crap we hear about on the network news on TV every day, it's inspiring to know that there are still guys around like Tim. Whether he is doing his own home improvements, riding his motorcycle, learning a new dance or yoga pose, or helping a friend, he bears all the marks of a self-made-person: strong character, honest, self-reliant, generous, and always curious, never missing the opportunity to learn something new.

I'm know there are a lot more people that are self-determined and self-reliant like Tim. I'll bet they are nearly all self-employed. They are what make this country as strong and resilient as it is. America isn't Hollywood, and it isn't the nightly news. It is strong, smart, hard-working people like Tim.

Midnight Thoughts on Being Self-Employed

Well, it's after midnight on Christmas Eve's Eve, and I find myself not quite ready for sleep, owing to some reading I got caught up in earlier. Were I still employed at the accounting firm, this would cause me great concern because I would have to get up and go to work tomorrow (Monday) morning in a greatly reduced state of attention, due to insufficient sleep.

But since I pretty much set my own schedule now, it is not an inconvenience to lay in bed until after 9am if necessary. I have a few last minute "finishing touches" to put on my Christmas shopping, but nothing else that absolutely has to be done tomorrow.

A typical work day for me is...well, I'm not sure there really is a typical day. I start out on the computer as soon as I wake up, which is generally between 7am and 8:45am. Checking email, reviewing new postings on my favorite blogs, checking for spam on one of the forums I moderate, and taking stock of what work needs to be done.

I may work on an article or blog post for the VISITFLORIDA.com website, or perhaps even take a trip to a nearby beach to do some research or get inspiration and photos for a new article. Perhaps I will meet with a new accounting client or spend 4 or 5 hours doing some accounting or tax work. Generally I find time to go to the gym for an hour and stop by the grocery store or natural foods store for a salad bar.

Usually I will work on several projects during the day. Only when I have a major project with a big paycheck at the end do I tend to stay focused on that one project until finished. Usually that might take 3 or 4 days. By that time I tend to get burned out and need a break. I work very intensely and give 100 percent to my work.

The thing I like about being self-employed is that I'm in control. Since I've left the firm, I've never looked back. No regrets.

Working for someone else eroded my sense of self-confidence. That scared me. But after more than 2 years into self-employment, my sense of self-confidence has returned, and has been bolstered by recent interactions with other self-employed people. If you are thinking of being self-employed or already have embarked on that journey, I highly recommend that, when the opportunity presents itself, you cultivate friendships with other self-employed people, even those in other fields.

You will never find a more self-reliant, confident, generous, and optimistic group of people anywhere, than among those with a self-determined life.

Most Profitable Chore You'll Ever Do!

So, what do you think it is? Putting Google ads on your website? Writing a killer sales letter? Learning how to write html? Nah! Putting together a color brochure? Again, NO!

My bet is that the most profitable task you'll ever do is keep a business mileage log for your car.

What! Yes, that boring, mundane, pesky task that you always promise yourself you'll do "next year, for sure." "I don't really drive that much and it's only a few cents per mile deduction." "Not worth the hassle. I can't remember to do it."

Well maybe you'll remember after I help you understand the numbers.

Let's say you're right, you don't drive that much for business. Let's estimate a conservative 4,000 miles each year on trips to clients, to the post office, to Office Depot, a few out-of-town trips...

I've done lots of tax returns for self-employed people and most have at least that much mileage. Some have 2 or 3 times that much.

The mileage deduction for 2006 was 44.5 cents per mile. For 4,000 miles, that comes to a total deduction of $1,780. Even assuming that you are in the 10% tax bracket, add 15% self-employment tax on top of that and your $1,780 business mileage deduction is saving you $445 in taxes.

Even if you write slowly and it takes you 45 seconds to write down your beginning and ending mileage and destination for each trip, and you drive for 250 days each year, that's 187 minutes of writing, or 3.13 hours of time recording your mileage for the year. That comes to $142 per hour for keeping a mileage log ($445 divided by 3.13 hours)!

I don't know about you, but I don't earn $142 an hour very often. After looking at it this way, I no longer consider keeping a mileage log a chore. I eagerly and religiously keep my mileage log perfectly up-to-date and am richly rewarded when I prepare my tax return.

How Do You Value Your Time?

One of the things about being self-employed (SE) is that we find that we have to do everything--sales, advertising, accounting, PR, and, oh yeah, the work too! Usually in the beginning there is no one to delegate to. The theory goes that at some point, in order to grow our business, we have to outsource tasks. How do we know which tasks to outsource?

Well, the first step seems to be to calculate the value of our time, usually on an hourly basis. If our time is worth $75/hour, then if we can get someone to do our bookkeeping for $50/hour, we should do so. If we can find a skilled person to write copy for our website, or update the site, or generate sales leads, and that person costs less than $75/hour, then it makes sense to outsource.

This whole topic of the value of my time is thought provoking. What about the value of free time? I read an interesting thread on a tax/accounting forum about hiring someone to do domestic chores. Someone wrote in that he was being accused of being lazy and good-for-nothing because he hired someone to clean his house and do chores, when he was perfectly capable of doing those things for himself.

If outsourcing in business is a good practice, then why wouldn't outsourcing on the domestic front be similar? The idea being that it is smart, for those who can afford it, to outsource domestic chores so that our free time can be spent on activities that refresh and renew us. I agree that I'd rather spend 2 hours reading a new book than mowing the yard in the summer heat.

Here's a personal example of a financial calculation that backfired: One of the windows in my home got cracked in a hurricane. I decided to replace it myself, rather than hiring it done. I bought a nice double-paned window from Home Depot for about $120. I live in a concrete block home. I've replaced many windows in a wood frame home, but never in a block home. To make a long story short, I ended up having to purchase a cold chisel for $12, a hammer drill for $120, drill bits for another $10, longer screws for god knows how much, and some concrete mortar and 2 tubes of caulking for the outside. Lets not even discuss the mess I had to clean up and the full day it took me to do the job (which turned out very nice, thank you).

I could have easily hired the very talented handyman who put in my dishwasher to do the job, probably for less money, and not blown a whole day on the darn thing. Lesson learned. I don't mind painting here and there, but some things just say: OUTSOURCE!

Outsourcing is also good for the economy. It provides American jobs (unless you are outsourcing to India!). You wouldn't do that would you?