PSA: I quit rounding up my mileage logs and found out I was the problem
For two years I was doing my mileage log all wrong. Every time I drove to a job site I would write down 12 miles even if it was 11.3, because I figured it was close enough and nobody checks. My buddy who does taxes for a living in Columbus was looking over my sheet last month and just started laughing. He said I was basically leaving money on the table by rounding down half the time and looking sloppy the other half. The real trick is you track every tenth of a mile, and the IRS actually wants the exact number because a 0.7 mile difference across 400 trips adds up to almost 300 miles. I went back through my last quarter and found about $600 worth of deductions I just gave away for free. Now I use the odometer photo on my phone every single stop. Has anyone else been doing this dumb math in their head for years without realizing it?