1. Stuck in the Middle: That’s where most of us are when it comes to retirement.
2. Tax time: Deducting the Home Office - debunking false myths of the home-office deduction.
3. Cash Value or Term?  An Expert Answers.
4. Will OPEC turn off the oil faucet? Jim Jubak doesn’t think so.
5. GM’s struggle: Cuts Dividend and Executive Pay to try to return to profitability.

I’ve heard over and over again why I want to reduce my tax refund to zero.  Or at least as close to zero as I can get.  Keep in mind that I’m not a tax advisor or attorney, but here’s some information on tax refunds that you might consider or discuss with a tax professional.

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1. Make Money at Home: Sounds like a spam email title, but here’s 4 real jobs you can do from home.
2. Bush presents new budget: Brother, can you spare $2.77 trillion?
3. Oil up, Stocks down.
4. Or are other things to blame for the stock drop?
5. Ben Stein writes about people like me - and maybe you.

One thing that bothered me for years about doing a home budget wasn’t the drudgery of doing a budget - it was the fact that I didn’t understand how much I should be budgeting for various categories.  I’d get answers that were vague, like “it depends on where you life” and “it varies.”  Of course there are people willing to sell me home budget software, but I don’t know if that would solve my problem.

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I have eleven credit cards.  There, I said it.  It made me feel a little bit better, but not much.  Let me try again.  I have eleven credit cards.  Good grief, that’s a lot of cards to have.

The good news (for me, not the banks who issued them) is that I’m getting rid of them one by one.  Here’s how I’m doing it:

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For years I’ve seen faxes come in to work claiming to have the next big stock pick.  And for years, I’ve thrown them into the trash without a second thought - until yesterday.  That’s when I decided to buy one and see what happened.

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I’m a skeptic.  When I first heard I could get my credit report free annually, and get it online, I was sure there was a catch.  I’ve heard too much about scams online involving idenity theft and who knows what else.  But this time I heard the claim, it was from two sources that I trust so I investigated further.

Sure enough, I was able to get my credit report online, get it for free and best of all I can do it every year.  You can, too.  Here’s how.

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