A tale of two...vocabularies

I'm an American. I use American English. My short stories and novel work are all done in American English. But a large portion of my freelance work is for a British client, which means that I have to also write a significant part of my work in British English.

Lately, I've noticed that I've begun using British spelling for many of the common words, simply out of habit. I had someone bring it to my attention the other day when they asked me why so many of my blog posts contained mis-spellings. When I started going through it, reading, I noticed that it wasn't mis-spellings at all, but a spattering of British and American English that the spellchecker doesn't always notice.

mis-spellings indeed, pish posh!

I actually am trying to keep my US work to a minimum. As a citizen living abroad I don't have to file for taxes as long as I make under a certain amount from US sources. If I make above that amount, I have to claim, but then I only have to file on the US portion of my income; any money that I make from foreign sources is tax-free. As of 2008 I believe it was something up to 84k a year that you can make from foreign sources without having to pay taxes on it.

Now, granted, I'm not making 80k a year at present, but the point is, if you use the system to your advantage you can manage quite nicely for yourself. I've met quite a few people over the years who do so. One in particular was a retired truck driver who was Union. He was getting paid nearly 50k a year in pension from the Union, and came over to Iraq to drive freight through the war zones. Dangerous, yes, but he made 80 thousand USD in 6 months because of the hazard pay, and was returning home with a cool tax-free 80k in his pocket, and another 50k in pension that he paid taxes on. Fair trade, as far as I'm concerned. He was in his mid 60s, in good health, and he said he'd already done it 3 years prior and was planning to do another 2 years until he cleared half a million.

I still have to work out the finer points of paying taxes while abroad, but suffice to say, I'm trying to keep most of my work in the European sector. At present as head of the household I can make something like 12 or 13k from US sources and not have to claim. If I make anything more than that I have to claim it. Good thing is, 85% of my income is from European sources at present, and I intend to keep it that way.

The downside? I don't know which version of English my fingers are typing sometimes :)