You’ve identified the deductions that go with your job, and you’ll be able to use that information in the years ahead. But what changed regulations (and potential refund enhancers) will apply in 2009 when you submit your tax return?
The end of the financial year is almost upon us, so get ready for filling out your tax return by making sure you’ve claimed all the recognised deductions for your job.
For many self-employed people, invoice generation is a task that gets spread inefficiently between Word and Excel. Invoiceplace lets you shift the process online and get some automation happening.
The blog at previously mentioned house pricing social network Home Price History offers up a trick for finding prices for houses that are listed online without a dollar figure (a pretty common scenario with auctions). Turns out that both realestateview.com.au and realestate.com.au store background information using Google Base, and if you go hunting through the real estate category on Base, you can often find the asking price in the listing for a particular property. As the blog points out, that situation may not last long, and our quick tests suggest it didn’t always produce the goods, but it’s potentially useful information if you’re trying to research a specific property.
Home Price HistoryAs part of his goal to get readers to save $1,000 in 30 days, personal finance blogger Ramit Sethi suggests setting up a personal fuel hedging fund to protect against rising petrol prices eating into your best intentions. His own method calls for figuring out what you were paying for petrol a month ago, setting up an automated bank sub-account, and transferring his monthly savings in gas costs to it. Setting a calendar reminder, he’ll check the cost of fuel in three months, and pull from the fund if needed, or drop more in if prices fall. If you’re not the type to save receipts, Sethi suggests an expense tracker like Mint to deliver your fuel costs to you. It’s basically an advanced means of tricking yourself into saving money, but a worthy one. Photo by ‘bert.
Use gas prices to become your own hedge fund [I Will Teach You to be Rich]Getting home or car insurance online is pretty standard these days, but more specialised insurance categories can be harder work. If you’re self-employed and work as a contractor in many fields (including IT), professional indemnity insurance is a key requirement. Comparison site BizCover generates custom quotes based on your business size and activity, and will sell you the insurance directly if you find a deal that suits. Indemnity insurance is hardly glamorous, but better to hunt it down online than suffer from an unexpected lawsuit later. BizCover
The Wall Street Journal walks through its own Budgeting 101 course, examining what makes a budget so hard to stick to and how to create realistic budgets that actually fit your fluctuating spending habits. Think about your life for a moment. Do you make the exact same purchases every single month? Of course not. What you buy differs from one month to the next. Yet many people use the “average cost per month” approach to budgeting, so that in any given month they can spend an average of $150 on clothes, and an average of $100 on a vacation, and an average of $300 on eating out, and so on.
Personal finance blogger Ramit Sethi’s Save $1,000 in 30 Days Challenge is exactly what is sounds like: Sethi wants to help as many of us as possible to save an extra $1,000 in the month of November. The challenge mixes daily tips from the I Will Teach You To Be Rich blog—broadly outlined in the video above—along with user-submitted tips for reaching the goal. We’re a few days behind schedule (the challenge started on the first), but if you could use a few extra bucks heading into the holiday season, now’s a great time to do some last-minute saving. Announcing the Save $1,000 in 30 Days Challenge [I Will Teach You to Be Rich via Get Rich Slowly]
Since its launch back in August, the GROCERYchoice supermarket comparison site hasn’t exactly inspired excitement amongst Australian consumers, in part because of the lack of detailed and specific data. Nonetheless, the ACCC is plugging away with the site, and the latest bunch of updates suggest that tightening economic times mean even greater competition for consumer dollars. Of the 61 regions covered, Woolworths and Coles were each cheapest for a “standard basket” in 30 regions, while independent supermarkets were the best deal in South-Eastern Queensland. ALDI remains the place to head for dedicated bargain hunters. GROCERYchoice
Back in September, we pointed out that a new system to make it easier to switch banks (by speeding up the transfer of automatic payments) was in development. That scheme goes live this week, so if you’re looking for a better deal from your bank, the process should be a bit less painful. As Karen Dearne confirms at AustralianIT, the process still isn’t automated — you need to transfer a printed list of payments from your old to your new bank — but at least it’s a start. Full details of the scheme can be found on the Australia Payments Clearing Association site (PDF link). To find yourself a better bank deal, check out recently mentioned Mozo.
Switching banks easier from Nov 1 [AustralianIT]
