I met with the accountant today. I honestly feel better even thought he hasn't done anything yet. I think we have figured out how to resolve the problems I was having.

Re: business checks. My bank charges 67 for 3 books of business size checks or 15 for 5 books of regular checks. So my business checks are regular size. Sometimes I run out of room but I'm cheap and I can write small.

Calli, if you purchase checks to use solely for business, then yes, they can be deducted.

I just have a debit card tied to the my business account -- which is a regular, no fee account, and the bank I use -- Commerce -- had no issues with me setting it up to be used for business. To get a what's CALLED a business account there, you need you carry a balance of $7000 which -- no. No can do at this point in my business.

I pay $9.95/ month to use Outright for my business accounting needs and it's worth every penny. And it's deductible also.

I really love living in the future. I just emailed .pdfs to our local print shop, who are holding our newsletter shells for us, and they will merge, print, assemble, stamp, and send our newsletter for us. And I didn't have to leave the house. It is the best thing ever.

One more round of business cards:

Thing One: [link]

Thing Two: [link]

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Ginger -- I like both cards; they aren't cookie-cutter and the proofing mark after Georgia is clever!

My only hesitation - and YMMV of course - is adding your home addy (and I am assuming it's your home address) to your business cards.

Unless you have regular F2F meetings at your home office, I would be a little nervous, but then, I leave my business cards everywhere and hand them out to tons of people. Perhaps just city and state?

Again, just my own safety-paranoia quirk.

I like them both, but number 2 a little more. I second the home address thing. How many people are going to actually mail you something that you couldn't give them your address.

I actually prefer the 1st card the best. I like the "white space" to the side of the pencil and visually I'm drawn to it.

I can see the comments about home addy.

I think you need to have a Web site built around this image and style. I think that would be arresting.

I prefer the overall layout on the first, but on the second I like that the pencil is making the mark. Gives it a dynamic feel and makes it clearer (for the clueless/young) that the scribble is not random.

Oh, I like #2 though they're both nice. And I third the home address part, though I suppose you might get more stuff mailed than I do (checks?), I only have city and state on mine. But my company has my address to mail things to, it's just that people I give my card to don't.

I concur on the address issue. I even paid for a p.o. box for 10 years until I realized that clients used it for a total of 3 times in a decade.

Back in the day, marketing folks said that you HAD to have a physical address for legitimacy. That doesn't seem to be the case any more.

I opened Thing Two and said, "That's the one!"

I lurve it...agree with le nubian about having a website built around that image.