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15 Simple Living Tips for Less Stress and More Freedom (balancethroughsimplicity.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/simpleliving@slrpnk.net
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[–] 2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

automation is great when its a societal thing benefit wise but everyone automating their own lives is just more nuisance. Like my taxes should be automated in the sense I should not have to do them if what the government sent me does not need correction.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (3 children)

    While that's often true, personal automation can be so freeing. It's more like a hobby for me, but my life is much better having more agency over how things get done.

    Email and media are two underrated examples of common, potentially mind-altering, timesucks but I do also automate my accounts and taxes, e.g. most transactions are automatically journalised and year end closing spits out the fields I need to file taxes.

    It works for me because it's highly personal. I love that I can nudge systems this way or that and the only agenda is one I choose explicitly.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I have no idea how you do that since almost all my tax documentation requires going into a portal to download the pdf. None of mine come straigtht into email. You are in the us? Anyway the fact you mention it as a kinda hobby is the issue. People have a lot of hobbies and some have no time for them. Its great if people enjoy it but its inneficient for everyone to be reinventing the wheel all the time. Things should be done such that its as easy as possible at the individual level while also being secure and private. It amazes me all the technology we have and how very little of it works for the typical individual (works as in empowers them and saves their time and helps them get the best deal or such as opposed to making it cumbesome unless they roll over and give all power to the entity their doing business with)

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Agreed. I spend time on it and am inefficient but it's overall worth while taking into account the benefits. There are many critical or difficult things I wouldn't automate myself but my goal is to reduce my requirements down to substitutable services where my counterparty doesn't have a monopoly over me.

    I'm a freelancer, and make my own documentation supported by invoices/receipts etc. As an employee, yeah, it doesn't make sense to self-report when the government already has the information it needs. A lot of countries use withholding so only send a statement of what you've paid and somewhere to complain when it's wrong, like you suggest.

    I think some change is coming wrt technology. There seems to be more interest again in open source.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    whats frustrating with the us is we have a perfect for irs to send us a filled form. Its called the 1040x and you use it to change a tax return you submitted. It has two columns so they could send one of the those or something configured like it, with the left side filled out and you could then sign or make adjustments on the right column and sign.

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