Hey everyone, sorry for the recent inconsistent posting. The past month as been really busy for me what with having a house guest (a cousin visiting us from Taiwan for 3 months), a trip to Disneyland (with 2 feisty dogs) the week before last and a trip to Las Vegas last week (with one feisty dog), but I am back and ready to get back to some serious blogging and carnival submissions.

Anyways, here are some great posts by fellow financial bloggers from recent weeks:

PF Bloggers

• Living Almost Large gives us an amusing list of ways in which people justify purchases.
• Seb at Pinching Copper gives his opinion that the penny is worthless. Would you pick up a penny from the sidewalk?
• Kevin from No Debt Plan achieved his goal of going the entire month of May without the air conditioner. Good for you guys!
• Jonathan at Master Your Card gives us 7 Zany Ways to Stop Overspending.
• Ginger from Girls Just Wanna Have Funds gave us Things That Piss Me Off: Food stamp recipients pinched by high food prices that has stirred up a bit of controversy.
• And for a bit of fun, check out Future Millionaire’s (Start of Work Week) Money Funny - Cost of Pop Culture Icons Today about the Brady Bunch, which I am only a little embarrassed to admit was one of my favorite shows at one time.

Elesewhere in the Financial Blogosphere

• I really appreciated Get Rich Slowly’s Closing the Gap Between Dreams and Reality. It has inspired me to get proactive about my financial goals.
• Find out how No Credit Needed will save/make $20,000 by giving up his soda habit!
• Something that goes nicely in hand with my recent Vacation Preparation Checklist is a post from Gather Little By Little about Low Cost Summer Family Vacation ideas with money saving tips.
• Frugal Dad gives a nice Used Car Buying Guide for Teenagers for parents, but it has some useful tips for us grown-ups too.
• We’ve recently begun thinking about starting some investments, so I was really glad to come across The Simple Dollar’s warning about how The Methods You Use to Deal with Ordinary Life Will Fail You As an Investor.
• I was amused by Spam Sales on the Rise, Common Sense at an All-Time Low. I thought it was funny because I recently bought a can of Spam, not as a substitute for real, nutritious food (well, OK it did end up substituting for real food for a couple of meals), but for my cousin to try because they don’t have Spam in Taiwan. It was probably the first can of Spam I have ever purchased. (I grew up in Hawaii where they have something called a “Spam Musubi” which is a slice of pan-fried spam layered over a block of rice and all wrapped in seaweed. YUMMY!)

New Carnival in Town

Oh, and one last bit of news. Jonathan from Master Your Card has started a new blog carnival called the Finance Fiesta which runs weekly on Thursday starting June 5, 2008. If you have a personal finance related blog, be sure to submit your best article!

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Next to the TV, DVD, flushing toilet, hot shower, computer and properly working automatic garage door, the internet is one of the best inventions ever. In fact, living in the desert as I do, I couldn’t get along without the internet. Even with the rising cost of internet service, the number of things it allows me to do makes it totally worth the cost and actually helps me to save money. Here I will share over 30 links to my favorite websites that provide free products or services. I will also include my favorite shopping sites for saving money. (Note: All links open in a new window.)

Productivity

• Check out one of my earlier posts Save Hundreds with Open Source Software for a list of open source applications with short descriptions of their functions and links to the websites for free downloads. These are not free trials but completely free programs that stay free and upgrade for free.
• Google Calendar is a handy online calendar that can send alerts to you by email or pop-up reminders. The program allows you to share your calendar with friends and family who also use Google Calendar so you can coordinate schedules with each other.

Computer Protection

• ZoneAlarm Free Firewall can filter all traffic in and out of your computer. The most secure setting will warn you of even legitimate access to the internet and of every attempt by a program installed on your computer to access the internet to check for updates, etc.
• ZoneAlarm Spy Blocker Toolbar protects you from spyware while surfing the net.
• McAfee SiteAdvisor warns you of bad sites and has profiles for each tested site with details on downloads, spam email count, and user reviews. It also shows the safety rating for web search results with a small icon next to each link: green for safe, red for unsafe, yellow for caution, and gray for untested (you can submit a test request for gray sites).
  

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A few days ago, I came across a thread on a forum where a member wrote about something dishonest she had done in order to save money. This individual was cleaning out her kitchen pantry and came across some jars of pasta sauce that she had gotten in a Buy One Get One Free sale some time ago and forgotten to use. She had exactly ½ the number of jars left as she originally came home with, so technically these could be regarded as the free jars she had gotten in the BOGO sale.

She saw that these jars of sauce were coming up on the expiration date (a week away) and since she didn’t have time to use them by the printed date and didn’t want them to “go to waste”, took them back to the store to return them. She told the cashier that she had lost the receipt and ended up receiving a $10.00 store credit for these items that she had gotten for free in the first place. She knew that what she had done was dishonest but said that she thought it had been worth it.

Now, I am all for frugality (which is defined as “prudence in avoiding waste,” see my post Frugality is a Virtue) and saving money, but there has to come a point where one draws a moral line and takes responsibility for one’s own mistakes. This person had herself neglected to use a product she had received for free and taken it back to the store under false pretenses and made a financial gain.

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For some reason, Daylight Savings Time seems to have advanced by a month and begins today, March 9, 2008. So make sure all your clocks are advanced by 1 hour or you might be late for work or an important appointment tomorrow.

One of the great things about modern technology is its ability to implant clocks wherever and whenever possible. The disadvantage of this, however, is that we now have more clocks than ever to reset twice a year (with the exception of the lucky few who reside in areas that don’t participate in this ritual.)

So I thought I’d put together a little list of things and appliances around your home or office that may need checking and/or resetting:

• Regular clocks around the house (that is, clocks that exist for the sole purpose of being clocks) - bedrooms, guest bedroom, mantel clocks, kitchen wall clock, living room, family room, rec room, etc.
• Wrist Watches
• Cell Phones (may only require turning off and turning back on)
• Oven & Microwave
• Televisions
• DVD Players/DVRs/VCRs
• Computers (in case your automatic update hasn’t kicked in) & Printers
• Phones & Answering Machines
• Fax & Copy Machines
• Postage Meters
• Digital Cameras & Camcorders
• Pagers
• iPods
• Radios/CD Players
• Car Stereos
• Sprinklers (if you’re particular about watering your lawn before sunrise)
• The Pen that’s also a Clock (because ’sometimes when you’re writing, you don’t always know the exact time.’)

Well, that’s all I can think of, and I’m sure there must be more, but these ought to keep you busy for a while.

If you make money working on your own, such as blogging with Google AdSense, Amazon Associates, etc., you will very likely have received a Form 1099-MISC for miscellaneous income by the beginning of February. And you will need to file and pay self-employment tax.

The first year I had to file self-employment tax, I was completely clueless as to which forms I needed to fill out. I spent hours going through the IRS website looking for any and all forms, instructions and publications that might apply to me. Now, after several awkward starts, starting and running a new business partnership for almost 3 years, and filing my own taxes for the past 4 years, I have become a little more familiar with the system and process, which has made the ordeal somewhat easier (though, unfortunately, not much pleasanter). If you decide to do your own taxes, here is a little guide of some of the basic forms and publications that might be of use to you and save you the hours and hours it took me to figure it out.

The reason I am doing this is that I have often found instructions or publications that apply to me and think will answer all my questions only to find out as I read that I need to refer to even more publications and fill out another form. As everyone’s circumstances may differ, so might the forms and publications you need.

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