Thirteen Frequently Overlooked Tax Deductions

My friend just became a Certified Public Accountant at a big firm and has to work 70- to 80-hour weeks until the end of April. Ah, tax season. Make the dreaded chore of doing your taxes more enjoyable (or at least more bearable) this year by reading up on 13 tax deductions that you may be eligible for but which are often overlooked. Some of the more interesting to me are student loan interest paid by Mom & Dad and reinvested dividends—who knew that the money automatically reinvested in my Roth IRA is tax-deductible? It’s also interesting to note that while you can’t deduct job search expenses, you can deduct moving expenses once you get that first job. Something for me to keep in mind for next year...

via Lifehacker

Savings in the New Year

OK, so I’m not going to lie: at least part of my decision to return to school was based on a desire for a higher salary. What I’ve since learned, however, is that another degree (or a higher salary) alone won’t guarantee future wealth. It turns out that saving is really the key to success.

In the book The Richest Man in Babylon (George Samuel Clason), one of the main mantras is “A part of everything I earn is mine to keep”—in other words, refrain from spending all of your money and you can invest it, thereby eventually providing yourself with a constant stream of wealth. By the way, this book was originally published in 1926, at least a partial testament to the truths in the book.

While saving and personal finance might strike you as incredibly dry subjects, it seems difficult to get through life without at least partially mastering them. And besides, you don’t want that higher salary you’ll be earning someday soon go to waste, do you?

Check out some of the personal finance blogs below to start learning more!

I Will Teach you to Be Rich

Wise Bread: Living Large on a Small Budget

Get Rich Slowly

Energy Vampires

Here’s a statement of the obvious for you: it’s cold outside. If you can’t tell just by looking outside, you can certainly tell by looking at your energy bill. Although cold weather brings higher gas prices, you can attempt to offset the increase by unplugging some of your most energy-inefficient household appliances when they’re not in use. Here’s an interesting article (via Lifehacker) that points out exactly how much energy your “energy vampires” use.

Here’s to staying warm on the cheap this holiday season.

The best use yet for Google

Alright, maybe you figured this one out on your own, but I, for one, did not. Good thing I have a co-worker to let me in on the biggest secret of the year...

When you're shopping online, whatever the site or store, just before you hit the check-out button from your shopping cart, do a quick Google search for coupons or discount key codes for that site. You'll be amazed with what you come up with. Some people have entire forums dedicated to the latest discounts.

I saved 20 percent the first time.

Yep, it was my most exciting Google moment.

Happy holiday shopping.

Money Management by Mint

Have you ever had trouble keeping track of your various credit cards, bank accounts and savings accounts? If you have (and I know I certainly have), then Mint.com might be a useful tool. This free Web site allows you to add credit cards and bank accounts to your account. From there, Mint updates the data daily and allows you to sign up for alerts when your accounts are low, your credit card is close to being maxed out, or when a bill is due. Other features include budget setting, expenditure tracking and analysis of spending trends. All of this adds up to one powerful tool that should make your financial life much more organized.

As far as security goes, it is up to you to decide whether you are comfortable with the thought of aggregating all of your financial information. Familiarize yourself with Mint’s Safety and Security Policy and read Lifehacker’s post “Is Mint Ready for Your Money?” to get a better idea of what Mint’s actual policies are and what measures they are taking to keep your information secure.

Tips for Living Within Your Means

As the title of this post suggests, these are some tips for living within your financial means. However, this list of 147 tips for living a more frugal life also puts forth several tips for living within your time and emotional constraints, both of which also have a dramatic impact on your quality of life. Take a look at these interesting tidbits and feel free to try some of them out in your own life. You may just find yourself with more time and money—and less stress!

via Frugalist.

How Long Will It Take You to Get Out of Debt?

MU's Office for Financial Success provides education and counseling to students for all areas of personal finance. The page allows you to subscribe to the Office's free weekly financial tip as well as sign up for one-on-one and group counseling sessions.

The site also has a Debt Management page of which I am particularly fond. The Loan Term Calculator allows you to put in the amount of loans you have (student loans, anyone?) and your estimated monthly payment. The Calculator will then compute how many months it will take you to pay of your loan, as well as how much you will actually pay in principal and finance charges.

I also like the Debt Calculator, which allows you to see how much time and money you would save from adding to your monthly payments. As an example, suppose you have $2000 in credit card debt and are currently paying $100 per month toward your balance and are being charged a 12% annual interest rate. If you double your payment to $200 a month, the Debt Calculator indicates that you would pay off the balance one year earlier and save $100 in interest! It’s not hard to imagine that the savings can be quite significant, given the amount of debt some of us have and exorbitant interest rates that can result from late payments.

So go ahead, check out some of these resources. Even a small step in managing your finances is a good step, and could possibly have some sizable benefits!

Public Transportation in Columbia, Mo.

As a recently car-less citizen of Columbia, Mo., I have been thoroughly testing the public transportation in our fair city during the past few weeks. If you live near a City of Columbia bus route (or can easily bike to one — all the buses have bike racks), I would definitely recommend looking into using Columbia Public Transportation for your commute to and from campus.

Price

Especially now that gasoline prices are climbing, taking the big blue bus to campus is an economically sound choice. Students with a student I.D. card ride for half-price. Here’s the current breakdown of options for students who can show I.D. (Prices are current at the time of publishing; check the City of Columbia site for up-to-date prices.):

• One-way trip: $0.25
• 7-day student pass: $2.50
• 25-ride pass: $5.00
• 30-day unlimited ride pass: $10.00

Purchases for one-way trips can be made with correct change on any City bus, and all passes can be bought at Wabash Station during business hours.

Routes Near Campus

All routes but two in the Columbia system stop at Wabash Station, Tenth and Ash Street (the main location for transfers), which is a 15-minute (or so) walk from Jesse Hall. In addition, the red, gold, brown and orange lines all have stops somewhere on campus. All route information can be found online, and physical maps can be picked up at Wabash.

Myth Busting

Several thoughts were keeping me from taking the bus before, and now that I’ve done it, I realize that they were unfounded. Reliability was one issue, but in my two weeks taking public transportation to and from campus for work, the buses have never run more than five minutes late. They are clean, and I feel safe during the ride. In addition, the drivers are generally nice and helpful.

A Few Downsides

Perhaps because so many college students take their cars to school and never take the bus, the City Transportation system does not generate enough cash to keep most routes running after 6:30 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, or at all on Sunday. This can pose a problem for those who work late in the labs or need to meet on campus in the evenings for group projects. For this reason, many who live car-less in Columbia require a bicycle (don’t forget to register it) or a scooter.

For those (like me) who are new to public transportation, planning the routes to take and accepting the extra time involved, as opposed to taking a personal car, takes some getting used to. But with my mp3 player in hand, I’ve managed to acclimate myself to the slightly slower pace of the bus system.

More Information

• City of Columbia Public Transportation (including ParaTransit)
• MU Parking and Transportation
• PedNet: Columbia Pedestrian and Pedaling Network

Free 411

Many of you may be familiar with 411, a nationwide directory assistance number. If you’re familiar with 411, though, chances are you’re also familiar with the fees associated with dialing the digits—over a dollar per call, which can add up pretty quickly if you’re too lazy to reach for a telephone book, like myself.

Luckily, there's now a free 411 number you can dial from your home or cell phone: 1-800-FREE411 (1-800-373-3411). Unluckily, what makes it free is the fact that you have to listen to an ad before you’ll be given your query results. True, the ad is only about 15 seconds long, but you’ll have to decide whether the annoyance is worth the savings. Free 411 also claims to never share your information with telemarketers. You can learn more about the service at Free411.com.

Google also recently launched a free directory assistance service called Goog-411, which can be accessed by dialing 1-800-GOOG-411. The service is completely automated and works with voice recognition software. This can lead to some misunderstandings, but with a little persistence (saying “back” a few times and retrying your query), you should be successful. It should also be noted that this service is still in the experimental stage and may not be available everywhere.

True, it might seem silly to compare 411 numbers when the phone book is free and doesn’t require any ad-listening, but it is quite a useful service when you’re on the run. There is word that AT&T is experimenting with free 411 calls, too.

Budgeting for fuel on your summer adventure

Whether you’ll be hopping in the car to visit the family or to take the road trip you’ve been dreaming about since winter break, estimating your fuel costs with AAA’s Fuel Cost Calculator can help you figure out whether you’ll have money left over to splurge on something a little more fun.

Unfortunately, Columbia, Mo., is not on the drop-down list of starting cities, but St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield are, so you can still get a fairly good idea of your costs. For instance, a round trip from St. Louis to Chicago in my trusty Chevy Prizm would cost somewhere around $56.32.

via Lifehacker

Budgeting and Money Tips at MSN Money

I came across the MSN Money section called Money in Your 20s right after I graduated from my undergraduate studies, and I found the advice there — especially about building a budget — really helpful. At the time, I was working as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, which meant that I made a living stipend that was very similar to a graduate student’s, in other words, not much.

Some of the best articles for grad students include:

• How to Build Your First Budget
• How to Blitz Your College Debts

And from other sections of MSN Money:

• The Insider’s Guide to Student Loans (geared more toward undergrads, but still some useful stuff)
• How Much College Debt is Too Much? (ditto on this one)

New season, new format

Welcome to Praxis: a blog for Mizzou grad students, published by the Graduate School. We’ve decided to try something new with Praxis — instead of creating a new issue of the online newsletter once a semester, as we’ve done in the past, we are switching to a blog format that will enable us to create quicker posts more frequently. We hope you enjoy the new format. We’re excited to keep giving you news and tips that will help you navigate the grad school experience at Mizzou.