Category Archives: money

High gas prices and the financial crisis? Get cash back!

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Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an easy way to get a few extra dollars in your pocket each month to help with high gas prices for your car, truck or suv? Well if you haven’t yet gotten a Discover Card now is the time to do so.

Just this month I have gotten over $60 cash back from just using it for our everyday family purchases (diapers and formula are expensive!)

Now the most important part when getting a cash back credit card is not to spend the cash back! They try and get you to purchase more things which means you spend more money instead of just getting the cash back. Now if those items you purchase are necessary items then by all means go for it, but most of the retailers that they list you could do without.

So if I can’t spend it what do I do with it? Redeem the cash back into your discover account and now you have those extra few dollars for those high gas prices!

You can also get a Discover card called the Open Road card that gives you more cash back for gas and auto purchases than the other Discover cards.

So if you spend money (and who doesn’t) or your a small business owner and want to get a few dollars back for doing what you would do anyway click on one of the links above to get your very own card today.

Small Business Owner Tax Tip (ie how to avoid paying back taxes)

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dollar, Bill.

Getting a letter from the IRS is never fun, getting a letter from the IRS saying you owe money is even less fun. Over a week ago I received a letter stating that I owed thousands of dollars in back taxes, fees and interest from over a year ago. I must say that I was in shock since this was the first year we had used an accountant for our taxes and I had not done my own. I guess I was so happy I didn’t have to do them that I didn’t even bother looking over them at all.
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Online Banking Setup for GnuCash 2.2.6 under Windows XP

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gnucash-logo

Since my linux raid decided to futz up (read I screwed it up) I’ve been using my Windows partition out of necessity until I have the time to rebuild my software raid 5 and gentoo. Until then we’ve been using GnuCash under Windows which has worked ok, but it is not as nice as the linux version by far. We use GnuCash for our business and it is critical that we have all the functions working in it. One of the things that I really missed was online banking. I could pull in all the transactions and clear them under GnuCash as well as making reconciling alot easier. The reason that GnuCash could not connect to my online bank was that the version of libofx it was saying it was an older version of Quicken and thus was denied from my bank. I read some more online and …
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You Can Save

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Natalija told me in a comment this morning to post something cool lol! Not sure how “cool” this is, but she did mention owning my own business and free time which makes me think of money. Well when I think of money I think of not having enough! So what better way to get more than to save! I get a weekly email from the Feed The Pig website and the topic of this week is “You Can Save”.

Saving is probably one of the hardest disciplines to master, but it is a necessity. It is the bare minimum on the path to financial freedom and it doesn’t hurt to have backup in case of job loss and an emergency. The books and articles that I have read recommend 4-6 months of your expenses in your savings account and about half of that in another account for immediate emergencies. The thought being that if you become sick or loose your job you can survive for 4-6 months without trouble. The other account is for true emergencies. And not the ones that involve a triple chocolate shake from TCBY. The kind where if you don’t get the car fixed you can’t work or to pay medical bills.

So you might ask “Where do I start?”, do what David Bach (The Automatic Millionaire) and others say. Pay yourself first. It’s not that hard when you know how. Here are a few tips on how to pay yourself first:

  • Pay as much into a retirement account as is allowed (or offered) by your employer.
  • Have automatic payments removed from your paycheck into a savings account
  • Automate any other payments and withdraws into savings as possible (that make sense of course)
  • Cut out something you do everyday (ie Starbucks $5 drink) and put it in savings. This is called the Latte Factor by David Bach

The more you can automate the better of you will be, but just pay yourself before you pay the bills, mortgage, rent, etc. Start small and build up. Take the “Latte Factor” seriously and you can increase your savings today!