It’s that time of year again.  If you haven’t started doing so yet it won’t be long before you start dragging out boxes of receipts and paperwork to begin preparing your taxes.  Assuming that, like most people, your (so called) fair share this year is more than you expected and or thought fair yourself you’ll be looking for ways to reduce that debt without having to go to jail for noncompliance.  Well, have you considered donating your old car to get a tax write off?

I know, I know, it’s too late to get the write off on the taxes you’ll be paying in April, but it’s never to early start for next year.  Especially once you take into account that you won’t know the exact value of your donation until after the car is sold.  That’s because the federal government prohibits non profit organizations from assigning values to material donations. However, your donation is valued at the full retail value of the car. So this is how it works…

1. Call your charity of choice to find out the procedure in your area
2. Turn over the car and wait for it to be sold
3. Once your vehicle is sold, you will be notified of the sale price and all the documentation that you will need to claim the deduction on your tax return will be sent to you, including a donation receipt and the IRS Form 8283.

That’s all there is to it!  So it’s not difficult, but it can take some time.  You’re thinking about taxes now anyway, right, so why not keep that forward momentum by donating to your favorite charity as well?

I never intended this blog to turn into a constant discussion on credit cards and small businesses, but it seems to be what local merchants want to discuss.  After my “Credit Card Processing For Small Businesses” post a few days back I’ve been pounded over the head by merchants asking why, exactly, they should accept credit cards.

The answer, of course, is because your customers want you to. But this isn’t good enough for some local businesses. One merchant pointed me to an October CNN Money article citing a September Javelin Strategy & Research study that showed 39% of consumers decreased their credit card usage, up from 37% in April. But what this merchant (and others like him) are missing is that this is the holiday season. The one month of the year when nearly everyone feels absolutely compelled to spend inordinate amounts of money whether they have it or not.

Yes, Americans drew back from burning up their Visas and MasterCards for a short time with the news of banks and other financial institutions crumbling around them. But then came the biggest gift-giving stampede of the year and they’re all out of cash. Credit is king once again, and your customers are going to be using those cards somewhere. Wouldn’t you rather have it be in your shop?

So, the federal government has decided that they’re done waiting around and they want me to pay my student loans off now. Of course, they’re threatening to take 15% of my paycheck every month and that will leave me unable to care for my daughter, but they aren’t really concerned about that. They just want their money – and I don’t have it. I was considering taking out another Personal Loan, but I don’t really think that’s going to solve my problem.  So, instead, I’m looking at various debt consolidation programs since many require no credit check, and they can reduce your debt by as much as 50% while combining everything into one monthly payment. Have you had any experiences with debt consolidation? If so, any tips would be very much appreciated.

As y’all know I visit an awful lot of credit related web sites.  Particularly those sites dedicated to bad credit as the only times in my life I’ve ever had a credit report at all, it’s always been bad.  But my favorite site (for going on three years now) has always been Bad Credit Offers.  Do you really have to ask why?  Simply because it has the coolest name, of course.  I remember when I first heard about it I was searching around for bad credit credit cards. I thought that was a humorous turn of phrase. But then I discovered the wealth of useful information at BadCreditOffers.com and knew the irony had come home to roost.

In the current economic climate more and more people are searching for ways to help their personal credit crunch.  Search no more!  Simply follow the irony   If you’ve come across a better name for a credit help website, please fell free to comment and let me know.  Until then, we have a winner!

Earlier today I wrote a big defense of cash advance loans over on my personal blog, but while filtering through my spam comments for this site another point came to me and I figured I’d share it here. If you run a blog you no doubt daily find comments that consist of such things as Payday Loans No Credit Check Required and odds are you delete them and grumble under your breath about these “evil” payday loan lenders. As a blog reader (which you obviously are since you’re here) you probably have similar thoughts when you see these comments as well.

However, you’re missing out on something that you may (or may not) find important.  Many, many people need payday loans, especially in the current economic environment.  And, contrary to popular belief, cash advance companies work on razor thin profit margins.  Their overhead is enormous and they’re willing to take risks that you would never even consider in an attempt to help people survive in tough times.

While out roaming the neighborhood this afternoon I ran into a reader who asked me about yesterday’s BillsIQ post.  It seems she thought I wasn’t being entirely honest with y’all and that I should have disclosed a little more personal information about my own struggles with credit card debt.

As regular readers know my primary job is working with developmentally disabled adults.  I’m a live-in caregiver. This is rewarding work and the compensation is adequate, but it does hold a risk that many other jobs do not – despite my job performance my clients can suddenly disappear. I don’t mean literally, of course, but they all have issues and these issues can progress, meaning they are no longer able to live in trditional housing despite my best efforts to assist them.  This is exactly what happened to me last summer.  My primary client (the one who I devoted roughly 70% of my time to) went into a severe decline and had to be placed in a secured group home for both his safety and the safety of those around him.  Obviosuly I want what’s best for all my clients, but this suddenly left me with 30% of the income I had while he was living with me.  Ouch!

It had only been recently that I had dug my way out of my earlier credit crisis and I was slowly rebuilding my credit by acquiring a few new credit cards and paying them off every month, just as all th eexperts tell you to do.  Unfortunately, the sudden loss of nearly three-quarters of my income (especially right at the beginning of summer) left me unable to pay any bills and the credit cards stopped being paid off.  Then they stopped being paid at all.  By the time I got a new client to move in they’d all been cancelled and sold to bill collectors.  Blech!

As soon as I got a new client my financial resources were right back to where they had been – in fact, I was somewhat better off as the new client actually requires more care than the previous one.  But it was too late to save my credit rating and the various late fees, etc that had been added onto my debts made the whole mess seem insurmountable.  Debt consolidation was an excellent solution for me because it made the whole problem appear smaller, and thus more manageable. It was sites like Bills.com that helped me find my way through my disastrous debt load and from those very sites that I learned the skills and information required to score as high as I did on the BillsIQ quiz.

I first heard about the Bills.com Bills IQ quiz a couple of months back but had procrastinated visiting the site until today. Much like I procrastinate paying my bills While the multiple choice format of the BillsIQ ‘quiz’ limited my choices a bit I definitely think this is one of the few online quizzes worth taking.

With five categories covered (Credit, Debt, Budget, Wealth and Life Plan) each with 5 questions the quiz will only occupy a few minutes of your time, but the change in awareness it could easily inspire will likely save you a large amount of money and an immeasurable amount of stress over the years.

Whatever your BillsIQ turns out to be, bills.com has plenty of advice and tools to benefit those seeking Debt help. While clearly not everyone in America is riddled with debt a quick glance around most social circles will definitely give that impression. Debt relief is, in fact, one of the most discussed financial topics discussed anywhere today with debt consolidation being a high priority in many households.

So I recommend you not only take the quiz yourself, but have your significant other take it as well and discuss and compare your results.  Then take a little time to browse around the rest of the site as well.  Money is freedom in modern day America, so no matter how much you know about being financially responsible there’s always a chance you can keep a little more of your hard earned cash an, thus, buy just a little more freedom.  Isn’t that worth a few minutes of your time?