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• Get your taxes done for free

  Posted Feb 25 2008, 11:16 AM by Donna Freedman
  Filed under: Extreme savings, Taxes
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  This post comes from Abby Freedman, a freelance writer and daughter of Smart Spending blogger Donna Freedman.
  

  As an aspiring accountant, I am just odd enough to find income taxes fascinating.
  

  Still, I understand there are saner individuals out there who prefer to duck and cover until this season is over.
  

  Generally, they cope by forking over $100 to $200 to have simple returns completed -- and not necessarily by a CPA -- at a "tax-in-the-box" establishment.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 58 comments) 61,800 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• What I really saved by changing my own battery

  Posted Jan 07 2008, 09:09 AM by Donna Freedman
  Filed under: Extreme savings, Taxes, Donna Freedman
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  Some readers thought the headline on "Earn $50 an hour: Change your own car battery" was misleading. Their basic gripe was semantic: "You're not earning the money, you're saving it."

  That's not how I see it. When you do a project, the money stays in your pocket instead of landing in someone else's. You are paying yourself. You are earning money.

  But when I thought it, I realized that the headline is misleading -- just not for the reason those readers thought.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 172 comments) 80,027 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Pushing the envelope -- by reusing it

  Posted Dec 21 2007, 09:36 AM by Donna Freedman
  Filed under: Extreme savings, Spending, Taxes, Donna Freedman
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  When I was a kid, I’d see my elders consulting tattered envelopes with words like DISH LIQUID, FLOUR and CINNAMON written on the backs. None of the frugal folks I knew would waste a perfectly good piece of paper just for a list of what to buy at the Food Fair.
  

  As an adult, I used a lot of Post-its. The little yellow squares festooned just about every flat surface I owned, from dining table to car dashboard to the inside of my wallet (where, as a bonus, they obscured my highly unflattering driver’s license photo).
  

  One day my supply of stickies ran out. I plucked a utility-bill envelope from the top of the wastebasket -- no mixed-paper recycling in our town back then -- and scribbled the next day’s to-do list on the back. One of the first things I wrote was "TAKE OUT TRASH."   Read More...

  Discuss ( 4 comments) 1,671 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this