Between Stops
MONEY MEETS TAX · EPISODE 26
Irvine · October 2026
Money & Tax in this episode
A day of site visits · The cost of getting there · Business mileage vs. commuting
At 9:08, Daisy was already eight minutes late.
Not to the client.
To herself.
She had planned to leave at nine.
Instead, she was standing in the garage with one shoe on, looking through her bag for a tape measure she was almost certain she had packed the night before.
Evan appeared at the door holding it.
Daisy looked at him.
“You took it?”
“No.”
“Then why do you have it?”
“It was on the kitchen counter.”
“I put it in my bag.”
“You put the bag next to it.”
Daisy took the tape measure.
“Okay, fair.”
She put it in her bag and reached for her keys.
Evan looked at the stack of samples under her arm.
“You’re coming back with more than that, aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
“How many stops?”
Daisy counted in her head.
“Client first. Tile showroom. Fabric place. Maybe lighting.”
“Maybe?”
“If the tile showroom doesn’t take two hours.”
“Will it?”
Daisy opened the car door.
“Yes.”
She left at 9:11.
The Costa Mesa meeting took an hour and twenty minutes.
The tile showroom took an hour and fifty.
The fabric place was quick, if thirty-five minutes counted as quick.
Lighting became necessary.
Lunch became a protein bar in the parking lot.
At 3:42, Daisy sent Evan a photo.
It showed the passenger seat covered in sample folders, two stone pieces wrapped in paper, a lighting catalog, and a coffee she had forgotten to drink.
Evan replied.
Productive?
Daisy typed:
Depends how you define productive.
Three dots appeared.
That sounds expensive.
She looked at the passenger seat.
Then at the clock.
Mostly time.
She put the phone down and drove home.
By the time she walked through the door, it was after five.
Jiwoo was on the floor pulling plastic rings off a stacking toy and placing them beside herself with more care than she usually gave them.
Evan looked up.
“How was it?”
Daisy put her bag down.
“I designed one room for eight hours.”
“Impressive room.”
“I was physically in the room for maybe an hour.”
Evan took one of the sample folders from her.
“This was the rest?”
“This and driving.”
“Did you find the tile?”
“Yes.”
“Fabric?”
“Yes.”
“Lighting?”
“Maybe.”
“You went to the lighting place for a maybe?”
Daisy looked at him.
“That is how lighting works.”
Evan nodded.
“I walked into that.”
“You did.”
She sat on the floor next to Jiwoo.
Jiwoo immediately reached for the sample folder.
Daisy moved it behind her.
“Not yours.”
Jiwoo looked offended.
Evan sat across from them.
“So how far did you drive?”
Daisy looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t track it?”
“No.”
“You went to four places.”
“I noticed.”
“I mean for the business.”
“I was there for the business.”
“The mileage.”
Daisy leaned back against the couch.
“I know what mileage means.”
“I’m just asking if you tracked it.”
“No.”
Evan reached for his phone.
Daisy pointed at him.
“You can look it up. I’m too tired to stop you.”
“That sounds like permission.”
“It’s surrender.”
He opened Maps.
“Where was the client?”
Daisy told him.
“Then tile?”
She told him.
“Fabric?”
Another address.
“Lighting?”
Daisy gave him the cross streets.
Evan moved through the route.
“Forty-six miles.”
Daisy looked over.
“Today?”
“Roughly.”
“That seems like a lot.”
“You drove across Orange County for a piece of tile.”
“It was six pieces of tile.”
“Then completely reasonable.”
Daisy smiled.
Evan kept looking at the screen.
“You should be logging this.”
“For taxes?”
“For taxes, yes. But also because you keep saying these projects don’t take that much time.”
Daisy looked at him.
“I don’t say that.”
“You said this one was small.”
“It is small.”
“You spent eight hours on it today.”
“Today was a weird day.”
“Was it?”
Daisy opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
The previous week had included one client visit.
Two trips to pick up samples.
A return to a showroom because the first sample had looked different in the client’s afternoon light.
None of those had felt like the project itself.
They had been the parts between the parts.
She looked at the folders beside Evan.
“How many miles did I drive last week?”
“I have no idea.”
“Helpful.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
Daisy rested her head against the couch.
“Fine.”
Evan smiled.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You have an expression.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
Jiwoo dropped one of the rings against his leg.
Evan handed it back to her.
Daisy reached for her laptop.
“You’re working again?”
“I want to see something.”
She opened the project file.
At the top was the fee she had quoted.
Underneath were a few expenses she had already paid.
Printing.
Two sample charges.
A small delivery fee.
She had tracked those because they came with receipts.
There was nothing for driving.
Nothing for the hour between a client meeting and a showroom appointment.
Nothing for going back because one finish had been discontinued.
Daisy stared at the screen.
“The mileage deduction doesn’t pay me for my time.”
“No.”
“So this is actually two problems.”
Evan nodded.
“One tax problem.”
“And one pricing problem.”
“Probably.”
“I’m trying not to tell the designer how to price design work.”
“Good instinct.”
She added a new line to the project sheet.
Travel / site coordination
No dollar amount.
Just hours.
Evan noticed.
“You’re charging them for it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then why track it?”
“So I know what the project actually takes.”
That answer sat there for a second.
Evan nodded.
“Fair.”
Daisy opened another tab.
“Okay. Now tell me about the miles.”
Evan looked surprised.
“You’re asking?”
“Go ahead.”
He picked up his phone again.
“The easy part is that driving for the business can be deductible.”
“That sounds suspiciously easy.”
“It gets worse.”
“There you are.”
Evan smiled.
“Driving between business locations is generally business mileage. Client to showroom. Showroom to vendor. Things like that.”
“Okay.”
“But driving from home to work is usually commuting.”
Daisy looked toward the hallway.
“My work is in that room.”
Evan followed her eyes.
The office door was open.
The shelves had arrived.
One already held more samples than Daisy had expected to own.
“Actually, that may matter.”
Daisy closed her eyes.
“We just finished the home-office episode.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Keep going.”
“If your home office qualifies as your principal place of business, driving from there to a client or another work location in the same business can be business transportation.”
Daisy opened her eyes.
“So the room changes the drive too?”
“Potentially.”
“That room is working very hard.”
“It has shelves now.”
“Three.”
“I’m aware.”
Daisy looked back at the project sheet.
“What if I stop for groceries on the way home?”
Evan paused.
“You’d have to separate the business miles from the personal part.”
“Of course.”
She pointed at the screen.
“And how much do I deduct? Gas?”
“You can generally use actual vehicle expenses or the standard mileage rate, depending on the rules.”
“What’s the mileage rate?”
Evan checked.
Then checked again.
“Seventy-six cents a mile right now.”
Daisy looked at him.
“Right now?”
“It changed in July.”
“Tax mileage has a midyear plot twist?”
“Apparently.”
Daisy picked up her phone.
“If today was forty-six miles, that’s what?”
Evan started calculating.
She stopped him.
“I can do forty-six times seventy-six cents.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
She typed it in.
$34.96.
Daisy looked at the number.
“That’s not nothing.”
“No.”
“It’s also not eight hours.”
“No.”
She left both lines on the spreadsheet.
Travel / site coordination: 3.4 hours
Business miles: 46
Two different numbers.
Two different problems.
The next morning, Daisy was at her desk before nine.
A client visit was on the calendar for eleven.
A showroom after that.
She opened Maps.
Then the project sheet.
Then a mileage log she had made the night before.
Date.
Destination.
Business purpose.
Starting mileage.
Ending mileage.
It was not beautiful.
Daisy looked at it for a few seconds.
Then added one more column.
Notes
Evan walked past the open door.
“You added a column.”
“I improved it.”
He stopped.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
Daisy smiled.
Then she picked up her keys.
Before leaving, she entered the first line.
The Tax Behind the Story
Driving somewhere for business does not automatically make every mile deductible.
Ordinary commuting between home and a regular workplace is generally personal. But transportation between business locations, such as from one client to another or from a client site to a vendor, can generally qualify as business transportation.
A qualifying home office can also change the analysis. If the home office is the taxpayer’s principal place of business, transportation between that home office and another work location in the same trade or business can generally be deductible rather than treated as ordinary commuting.
Self-employed taxpayers may generally calculate deductible vehicle costs using the standard mileage rate or the actual-expense method, subject to the applicable rules and method limitations.
For business driving from July 1 through December 31, 2026, the federal standard mileage rate is 76 cents per mile. The rate was 72.5 cents per mile for the first half of 2026.
The deduction matters.
But Daisy had found a different number first.
The miles showed what the car cost.
The hours showed what the project actually required.
Want the tax rules behind the story?
Business Mileage: Which Miles Can You Actually Deduct?
Driving to a client, stopping at a vendor, commuting from home, and adding a personal errand to the trip do not all receive the same tax treatment.
This guide explains business mileage versus commuting, how a qualifying home office can affect the starting point of a business trip, the standard-mileage and actual-expense methods, mixed business and personal driving, and the records worth keeping before tax season.