books

Pay your taxes like the rich.

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51PYxmmqqGL._AA300_In a recent post called “How to be a side-gigger” I noted that the four books mentioned in the article would eventually go up as giveaways.

Here’s the first one: “Outsmarting the System: Lower Your Taxes, Control Your Future and Reach Financial Freedom.”  

Written by former IRS auditor Anthony Campidonica, the slim volume explains several ways that ordinary people can use a group of tax benefits, i.e., those for the self-employed. You could be an entrepreneur (full- or part-time), a landlord or an investor.

What if you don’t have the wherewithal to open a store, buy a rental property or invest like the pros? Start small, the author advises. Sell your expertise or a product on the side vs. quitting your day job and diving in. Or save up for that foreclosure or repo and go the renovation-and-rental route in your off hours.

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My minor celebrity moment. What’s yours?

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Photo courtesy of Free Images (pachd.com)
Photo courtesy of Free Images (pachd.com)

During its musical revues the old Fly By Night Club sometimes included a “Minor Celebrities” bit, inviting audience members to write down their furthest-removed brushes with fame. During intermission the cast would pick what they thought were the best – and again, the more tenuous, the better.

Thus we’d hear things like:

“I take dance class with Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeon’s wife.

“My great-uncle invented Cheez Whiz.”

“I once heard Brian Keith belch when I walked past his house in Hawaii to go surfing.”

“I used to carpool a kid whose mother’s father embalmed Babe Ruth.”

All these snippets led, naturally, to a book. The title: “Elvis Presley’s Pharmacist Was My Sunday-School Teacher.” 

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How to be a side-gigger.

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qDoing well on your current salary? If so, you’re lucky. According to a MetLife survey, anywhere from 12 to 25 percent of U.S. citizens are either freelancing or working a second job.

A handful of work-related books have come my way lately, offering help for the current or wannabe “solopreneur.” The best of the bunch is Kimberly Palmer’s “The Economy of You: Discover Your Inner Entrepreneur and Recession-Proof Your Life.” The senior money editor for U.S. News & World Report, Palmer isn’t immune to financial fears.

That’s because although she and her husband both have traditional jobs, they also have two kids and are staring at the same fears a lot of us face: Life is getting more expensive and no one is immune to layoffs. (Ask me how I know.)

So she started her own Etsy store, Palmer’s Planners, in the hopes of being able eventually to work for herself, at her own pace. “It was really about so much more than money. I wanted to be in control of my life,” she writes.

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Blowback from Mary Hunt’s book giveaway.

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thPlenty of food for thought in the comments on last week’s prize, Mary Hunt’s “The Smart Woman’s Guide to Planning Retirement.” National pundits and rich politicians who think that the economy is going just fine, thanks, should get an eyeful of stories like:

“I am 44. I have no money. No savings. No job.”

“Like others, I have student loans and – in this economy – am earning very little, and struggling to do that.”

“As a 48-year-old whose financial situation has deteriorated drastically due to some serious life changes, I could really use the help.”

I’m 52 and recently lost my job. I have no savings, my husband has been on disability for 20 years and we rely on every penny that I make. … I don’t want to have to work until I die.”

“I have spent more than one sleepless night fretting about this very subject. Divorced, mid-forties, paycheck to paycheck, less than stellar salary, adult kids sometimes need my help, prices up, taxes up…”

Understand: Such comments don’t surprise me, because I’m playing catch-up with my own retirement and also because more than a few people in my life are living fairly close to the bone. Not every pundit and politician has that daily reality check.

 

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A book that could change your life.

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guidetoretirementLadies: How’s your retirement planning going? Have you even started? Do you fear you’ll never be able to stop working?

Have I got a book for you.

Mary Hunt’s “The Smart Woman’s Guide to Planning For Retirement” is designed for women of all ages. Yes, I’m looking at the 40- and 50-somethings who don’t really have a clear plan except, “I hope Social Security isn’t gutted by the time I retire.”

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 55 percent of women have no savings at all and thus depend entirely on Social Security. Since the average monthly check is $1,130, that would be like working for $6.40 an hour, the author notes: “Could you live on that?”

Those who retire with some savings don’t fare much better. The average account has less than $30,000 in it; assuming you live to 85, it works out to just an additional $125 a month.

Want to take charge of your own finances? Enter for a chance to win a copy of this book.

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The gift of personal finance.

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thGot a relative or friend who’s financially at sea? Or someone who’s just starting out and who could easily develop bad money habits?

Maybe that’s a middle-aged recent divorcee, a single-mom friend who’s got more month than money, or a slacker cousin who at 35 hasn’t done a thing about retirement.

Or perhaps you know young professionals who are racking up consumer debt, or parents-to-be wondering if one of them can stay home and not torpedo their financial and professional goals.

You might be able to help: This holiday season, give the gift of personal finance.

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How to trim your living expenses. (Realistically.)

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9781591846437HWhile at the Financial Blogger Conference in St. Louis, I ran into Brian J. O’Connor, personal finance editor and columnist for The Detroit News. He was in the Expo Hall, handing out copies of his book, “The $1,000 Challenge: How One Family Slashed its Budget Without Moving Under a Bridge or Living on Government Cheese.”

I happened to have read the book (got an advance uncorrected proof) and was thus able to provide him with potentially the strangest endorsement for the cover of the second edition: “Your book helped me get through my colonoscopy prep.”

He did blink a bit at that, but apparently being a PF writer in Detroit exposes you to all sorts of odd people.

I’d kept the galleys in the bathroom during the, uh, cleansing part of the prep, so as to get a little work done despite my frequent trips to the john. Turns out it was the right move, so to speak: The book is funny as well as well-researched and it took my mind off the current circumstances.

O’Connor’s premise is simple: As middle-class budgets get squeezed ever more tightly, how can we actually save in the face of price increases of the most basic needs?

But he did it, trimming his own family’s budget fairly ruthlessly — yet also fairly painlessly. That’s why I’m giving the book away: to inspire others to find ways to rearrange their own expenses.

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Giveaway: Return of the large flat-rate box of Alaska.

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MedLetThemSpeakA giveaway from last March, “The large flat-rate box of Alaska,” drew 122 entries. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since a lot of people are interested in the Last Frontier and a lot of people like big boxes full of little things.

It’s an odd mix this time around. Then again, Alaska is a pretty odd state.

Among the offerings:

Music: “Icy Grooves,” a CD from local jazz favorite Rick Zelinsky. (He was the guy we were listening to when those people decided to yammer through jazz night.)

Video: “Big Wild Anchorage,” hosted by Mr. Whitekeys (of the late, lamented Fly By Night Club). This particular video is a family-friendly look at Alaska’s largest city, from float planes to glaciers to sled-dog races that begin downtown (where they put snow on the streets).

Bags: A large, reusable shopping bag imprinted with “MTA: Celebrating 60 Years” (that’s the Matanuska Telephone Association, for all you cheechakos), plus another large bag with the logo of “The Vampire Assassins League,” a paranormal romance series (yep, that’s an actual genre) written by Alaska author Jackie Ivie. 

More Jackie Ivie stuff: A Vampire Assassins League coffee mug and two VAL temporary tattoos, plus a copy of “Knight Everlasting,” a novel from her historical romance series about a stalwart clansman in the Scottish highlands. (Och! What does he wear under the kilt, is what I want to know.)

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The Coffeehouse Cliche giveaway.

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51HixOXuQXL._AA200_As summer slips away we prepare to move more of our lives indoors. That is, unless we’re clever enough to live somewhere that’s temperate year-round.

Warm interiors. Hot drinks. Burning inspiration.

If you were ever going to write poetry, plays, short stories or the Great American Novel, you’re a lot less likely to do it when the weather is fine. No, fall and winter is when we head indoors and think deep thoughts.

(Or watch televised sports or “The Walking Dead,” or indulge in whatever nerdy pastimes make us happy.)

This week’s giveaway will give you two tools of the trade, or rather the accoutrements of the affected: a notebook and some coffeehouse scrip.

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