Save Some Archives - Page 5 of 5

Avoid Income Tax Without Calling Down the Wrath of the IRS

By Stephanie, updated April 8, 2007 17 Comments
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I don’t want to get political here, but I do want to point out something I came across that is very interesting. There is a group of war protestors who refuse to fund the war through their federal income taxes – so they’ve decided to stop paying those taxes. And they’ve figured out how to do it legally.

The basic idea for this “legal tax refusal” is to get their income below the taxable level – live on $8,450 a year, or less. The group points out that you can raise that number to $12,450 if you contribute to an IRA, but that extra $4,000 isn’t available to be spent.

Anybody, regardless of their political leanings, can glean some important finance concepts from the group:

It is possible to live on very little, and the group even provides tips on how to do so. These tips are helpful to anyone trying to reduce their expenses, regardless of income.
Even on a minimal income, it’s still possible, and advantageous, to contribute to a retirement fund.

Do you think you could live on less than $1000 a month?

Compacting, By Accident!

By Stephanie, updated February 26, 2007 11 Comments
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I think I’ve become an unintentional Compacter! For those of you who don’t know, Compactors are people who strive to reduce their environmental impact and increase their frugality by not buying anything new (except for food and health/safety items). I looked at my Excel document of expenses for 2007, and here’s everything I’ve bought:

Gas for my car, 3 times (most Compacters try not to drive, but that’s impossible in my area, and I haven’t been driving very much)
Clothes ($3.00 for the sales tax when I used a gift card)
Netflix (one month, I signed up for it to get $20.00 back from CashDuck)
Groceries
Car payments (on my used car)
Credit card payments
Car wash (to keep the salt from the roads from eating my car alive)
One garbage plate (it’s food… sort of!)

The new clothes, the Netflix, and the car wash might not fit exactly into the Compacting mentality, but then again, I wasn’t trying!

I think from now on, I’m going to continue my “loose compacting,” regardless of how much money I have coming in. Not buying anything new reduces my environmental impact and my clutter, and it leaves me more money to pay down my credit card debt. So, I’m going to Compact (sort of) until that debt is gone!

Beat the Campus Bookstore, Save on Textbooks

By Stephanie, updated January 13, 2007 2 Comments
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There’s been a lot of buzz around the financial blog community lately about saving money on textbooks. At The Simple Dollar, Trent suggests getting the Amazon.com Visa and using it only for textbooks, and paying it off immediately each time with your book money. I’ll have to keep this in mind when I go back to school, since that’s the credit card I already have. Over at Stingy Students, there’s a great list of sites to check for your books at the lowest price, but they didn’t list my favorite site of all, so I’d like to take a minute to talk about it.

This endorsement comes with no strings. I don’t know the guys who run the site (even though they are from my city), and I offer my opinion without compensation. There, disclaimer done.

Starving Scholars is just plain cool. It lets you list the textbooks you have that you want to unload, and name the price you want to unload them for – much higher than what your bookstore will offer you. (My bookstore tried to give me $10 for a book I paid $100 for, I told them “no thanks.”) You can search the books other people have listed, and it will tell you who at your school has the book your looking for, as well as people at other schools who are willing to ship. I bought one of my textbooks through this site, and didn’t have to pay any shipping, because I just met the guy outside of my campus convenience store and paid cash!

They’re constantly adding new features as well – you can now list anything you want other than textbooks, and there’s a professor rating system as well (but what college related site doesn’t have that?). The only problem would be that not enough people use it, so you probably won’t find most of your books. Still, it’s worth going to the site and listing the books you have to sell – you never know, you might get a bite!

Here’s the link to the books I’m currently selling on the site, so you can get an idea of how it works.

In the end, any method you use to get around the bookstore’s evil monopoly will probably save you a ton of money. I had trouble ever managing it, because most of my film school textbooks simply weren’t available anywhere else. So, I wish you all luck in your quest to save money – I’m going to look for a major with cheaper textbooks!

Save Some Tip #2: Ride That Bus!

By Stephanie, updated January 11, 2007 1 Comment
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Does your area have good public transportation? Mine doesn’t. Because I live in the boonies. It’s literally five miles to the nearest gas station or convenience store. The only thing within walking distance of me is a sketchy trailer park filled with people who used to make fun of me on the bus to school.

But when I lived in LA, one of the things I liked most about my job was when I got assigned the day shift. There was a bus that ran every 20 minutes, pretty much directly from my apartment to the restaurant, for 25 cents. Unfortunately, it didn’t run at night, so I could only use it for my day shifts.

It’s certainly good, too, because I would hate to drive in LA. I managed to avoid it for the whole summer, but I doubt I’ll be that lucky once I live out there again. The traffic is horrible, and it’s just completely different from any driving situation I’ve ever been in before. So not only could the bus save me money, it’s probably also likely to keep me out of an accident.

But how much money can the bus save you, exactly? Well, according to the American Public Transportation Association, $6,200 a year per household. Seriously? Seriously. Right there might be my whole excuse for never owning a car in LA.

Save Some Tip #1: Turn Up the Heat?

By Stephanie, updated January 8, 2007 3 Comments
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The option of walking downstairs and turning a dial to turn up the heat is not available to me. I live in a gorgeous 18 year old log house (not to be mistaken with a log cabin, but that’s not my story), which is currently not heated by a furnace, but rather, by a wood stove. It’s 39 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but there’s no fire burning downstairs. I could, and likely should, go start one, before the temperatures start to drop for the night. However, the ways I combat with the chill in my house might be of interest to anyone else who does have the ability to control their heat by a dial, but chooses to keep it low to save money.

My slippers. My mother gave me a pair of lamb’s wool lined slippers for Christmas in 2005, because I was always stealing hers. My feet tend to be cold long after the rest of me is well covered, and I hate wearing socks indoors. This minimal investment is both comfy and does wonders for your body warmth.
Closing off rooms you don’t use. The back office, where our family business supplies are kept, and the door to the basement remain shut at all times. Sure, it’s cold in that back room when I pop in there for 10 seconds to retrieve something, but I get over it.
Layers! I’m almost never around the house without a hoodie or sweater on, regardless of whether there’s a fire in the wood stove or not.
My poor hands while I type at my computer have not yet been saved. I have the yarn to knit a pair of fingerless gloves, but I don’t have the proper size of needles yet. Does anyone have five “size 2” double-pointed needles laying around?

In the end, perhaps it’s laziness that keeps me from starting a fire right now. But as long as I’m not cold, I’m saving a few logs, which saves money in the long run. If you’re wondering how I survive the opposite – heat in the summer – it’s simple. I grew up without air conditioning, so I never became dependant on it.. When it gets real bad, I move all of my stuff into the basement bedroom and refuse to leave until September.