Free From Broke

A Personal Finance Blog for Regular Folks

Miranda

Tax Time: What to Bring to Your Accountant

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Sometimes, it makes sense to have someone else to do your taxes.

If you have complex taxes, an accountant can make your life a little easier — and be worth every penny.

However, your accountant can’t work miracles. He or she can only prepare your taxes based on information that you provide. This means that you need to bring in everything needed to have your taxes done properly.

What to Bring to Your Accountant for Taxes

Personal Information

First of all, you need to have all of your personal information.

Bring in your Social Security number, as well as the numbers associated with your dependents.  The first time I used an accountant for taxes, I didn’t bring in my son’s Social Security number. It slowed things down a little bit, since I had to go back home to get it.
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Is the YOLO (You Only Live Once) Mentality Dangerous for Your Finances?

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When you are young and of limited means, access to experiences can be few and far between — at least without debt.

But to some, experiences are so important that they’ll head off on vacation in spite of mounds of debt.

One of the underlying characteristics of the “You Only Live Once” (YOLO) philosophy is that you should enjoy yourself now, before it’s too late.  What happens if you fritter away all your young and healthy years without truly living, only to find that your golden years are taken up by infirmity?  All that money you scrimped to build a nest egg just goes to paying medical bills.

YOLO says that it’s ok to be comfortable carrying a certain amount of debt, as long as you are pursuing great life experiences and enjoying the lifestyle you want to live.  In some cases, it’s even ok to incur more debt in order to travel the world — as long as you can handle the payments.

How YOLO Can Become Problematic for Your Finances

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How to Blog and Make Money – 5 Ways to Use Your Blog to Make Money

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By now, many have recognized the potential for blogs as a money maker.

While many people don’t actually end up getting rich off their blogging efforts, there are some who manage to build home businesses around their blogs — or at least use their blogs to make a little more money from their business efforts.

If you are looking for ways to use your blog to make money, you might be surprised that it isn’t all about affiliate marketing (although that can certainly be part of it).  The big question of course is how to blog and make money?

Here are 5 ways that you can use your blog to make money:

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4 Money Attitudes that Will Lead to Financial Failure

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Sometimes, the way we think about money can have a big impact on how successful we are financially.

It seems strange that your mindset could matter so much, but how you think about money, and what you think is possible, can affect your financial success over time.

Take a few minutes to examine your money attitudes, and determine whether or not they are healthy.  Think about some of the attitudes you have that might be bringing your finances down the road to financial failure, including:

1. I’ll Start Saving When I Make More Money

My husband and I fell victim to this attitude early on in our marriage.  We thought we had to be making a certain amount of money before we could start saving.

Eventually, though, we realized that we needed to start small.  Building the habit, especially with our low income, was more important than anything else.

It’s important to get in the habit of saving.
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8 Places to Research Your Potential House Before You Buy a Home

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Buying a home is a big deal.  

You don’t want to go into it unprepared.

Before you buy a house, you want to make sure that you are getting the right house for you — and that it’s in the right neighborhood. The steps to buying a house start with thorough research on the topic.

As you research buying a house, here are 8 web sites that can help you narrow the field and find what works best for you:

1. Trulia

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