I know I should have thought to post this earlier, but only just remembered to pay my own mortgage now instead of tomorrow. If you own a home and have not yet made your mortgage payment due on January 1, 2009, do it now before 2008 is over. This could cut the income taxes you will have to pay in April 2009 for you may be able to take a deduction for mortgage interest paid in 2008.

I am not a tax expert and there are some limitations, (i.e. if you deduct your Jan. 2009 mortgage interest from your 2008 taxes, you can’t do it again for 2009, if your 2008 income exceeds a certain amount), but here is a link to an article on MSN Real Estate which might tell you if you would benefit from doing this:

Early year-end mortgage payment could cut taxes

If you pay your mortgage online, do it now as our bank’s website is super slow today, perhaps due to the rush to customers trying to get their payment in before the year ends.

Happy New Year!

Pecuniarities participated in 3 blog carnivals last week.

• The Carnival of Personal Finance #184: From the Land Down Under was hosted by Saving to Invest who spent his Christmas holidays in summery Australia. This edition included my post on our plans for a frugal Christmas: Frugal Christmas: Skipping the Tree and Presents This Year.
• The 157th Festival of Frugality: The Queen’s Speech Edition was hosted by Miss Thrifty all the way from the Mother Country and included the Queen’s annual Christmas message which has been a tradition since 1932, as well as an alternative for those who can’t be bothered to watch the Queen. Madoline’s post, Using Nature’s Gift Wrap: The Eggshell was selected as an Editor’s Pick in this royal edition. Double thanks for the honors!
• The 44th Money Hacks Carnival - The Merry Christmas Edition was hosted by Where You Are Now and included my post on how Gifts Cards Could Be a Blessing This Christmas.

Well, that’s all for this week. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and enjoy your New Year’s festivities.

This is a re-post of one of our earliest articles first published February 27, 2008.

Conversion of a Common Coniferous Conundrum

When we moved into our own home, my sister and I decided to make our first Christmas a memorable one, which included the purchase of a 7 foot tall Christmas tree. Another occasion which came with taking possession of the house was our going to the sanitation office and signing up for trash pickup, at which time we were warned that sanitation engineers would refuse to empty any trash container which was overfilled. To make sure we understood what it meant to overfill a trash container, the sanitation department employee showed us several photographs of a trash container into which a Christmas tree had been rammed with the lid in various half-hearted attempts at closure. Happily, this specific offense we will never be tempted to commit. For why on earth would two practical people like ourselves throw away (or reduce to mulch) a perfectly good used Christmas tree?

Almost as soon as we wrestled and tilted our Christmas tree into a position which passed for perpendicular, I began scheming at the potential uses of this sizable item which would become available as soon as December 26. However, to make the best of the purchase, we left the tree decorated well into January. After divesting the tree of it’s ornaments, we sawed off the branches while the tree was still standing, leaving a few attractive stumps. The branches were easily disposed of without upsetting the sanitation department. We then sawed off the part of the trunk that had been standing in water and were left with a 6+ foot tree trunk.

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With Christmas almost upon us, here are some last minute gift bag templates for the eleventh hour shoppers and gift wrappers. The Small carrier bags measure approximately 4 1/2″ tall, and the Mini carrier bags 3 1/2″ if printed on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece of paper.

The images are large enough to be printed on slightly larger paper if desired. Select “scale to fit” when printing. Directions for folding and gluing are included on the printout. Click on the small images below to view and print.

Merry Christmas! Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some free printable templates for Holiday gift bags and tags designed by Madoline Hatter. Feel free to print them for your personal use. This is a snowflake design on various shades of blue background and includes carrier bags, treat bags and gift tags.

Suggestions: Gift tags can be printed on cardstock paper and tied to a carrier bag with twine, yarn or string, or printed on paper and glued to a bag.

If using on an inkjet printer, make sure the ink is fully dry and avoid touching the color ink when gluing.

Printing and Assembly Directions: Read the rest of this entry »

The topic for this month’s PF Bloggers Group Writing Project is our Favorite Christmas Memories. My favorite memory is our first Christmas in our own house, which was 2006. We bought our house in November 2005, but we had to travel out of the country to attend a cousin’s wedding - actually we were bridesmaids for the wedding - so our first Christmas in our house was 2006.

On Black Friday 2006, we went to Walmart for some shopping, and because we take our dogs everywhere with us and they were in the car, Madoline and I took turns going in to shop. Madoline went second, and when she came out, she had an 8′ Douglas Fir in a shopping cart. Thus began our Christmas festivities. We moved the dogs to the front seat, put the backseat down and shoved the tree into the car and it fit just perfectly with the tip of the tree at the dashboard. We drove the 50-minute trip home with Madoline and the 2 dogs in the front passenger seat (one sitting on the floor and one in her lap), the tree at my elbow and the whole car smelling like Christmas.

Wrestling the tree out of the car, sawing off a bit of the bottom and putting it in the tree stand was a bit of an ordeal, but we finally got it standing almost completely straight in our music room (a dining room for most people). This was our dogs’ first Christmas (they would turn 1 on January 5) and while they had no idea what Christmas was, they could tell it was exciting and were all over the place as we got out the ornaments and decorated the tree.

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