Financial books aren't normally anything I enjoy reading. If I'm going to sit down and read a book, it's going to be for pleasure. I have to say that pleasure is just what I got from this book.
I was expecting to be bored to tears, but glean some useful financial information from Piggy Banks to Paychecks by Angie Mohr. To be fair, I did get an education and found the glossary in the back to be an especially useful tool, but I was also entertained. She somehow turned finances into something I could stand to read about because she included her own voice and real life situations.
Piggy Banks to Paychecks is a sort of guide to help parents educate their children in the world of finances. It does just that, but does it in such a way that the parent isn't wishing they were watching a good movie instead of reading the book.
Angie Mohr has packed this book with more information that a first year Econ class. It's written in the voice of a parent rather than a dry accounting perspective. Well organized and easy to read, Piggy Banks to Paychecks may just be the best financial book I've read yet. A huge thumbs up to Angie Mohr for a job well done!
Book Review: Piggy Banks to Paychecks
Tax Resources for Freelance Writers
Tax season is here and that means you're either cringing or celebrating. Either way, I thought I would try to make things a bit easier by sharing some tax resources that can make your 2011 tax preparation a bit easier.
Do not go to HR Block. You'll pay hundreds of dollars for someone else to prepare your taxes and you won't get them any sooner than you will if you do them at home. As a freelance writer you are obviously capable of your own data entry and have access to the Internet. Use it wisely.
Learn from a seasoned CA (equivalent of a CPA) and freelance writer. In fact, read this book
before you even start your taxes so you have an idea of what you're working with. Angie Leamen Mohr shows you how to save on your taxes by letting you know about deductions and rules you may not be aware of. Seriously...self-employment tax isn't cheap so use very advantage you can get!
File for free. The government does have some mercy on us during tax season, or maybe they just wanted to make everything easier on themselves. Either way, they've created a list of places where you can file your taxes for free. It's called FreeFile and you have a wide variety of options to choose from. The government doesn't generally offer up a lot of free things, so take it while you can!
Keep an eye on your taxes. The IRS refund schedule makes it easy to find out when you can expect your refund back. Again, please note that HR Block no longer has refund anticipation loans, so there is absolutely no reason to spend your money there. As you can see, you can get your refund back all on our own within 1-2 weeks.
SEO for Google
If you're an online freelance writer, you've more than likely had to write some articles that had to have SEO work into them. Sometimes the phrase seems almost impossible to incorporate into a normal sentence, but knowing how Google reads text can be a big help.
Google doesn't currently recognize punctuation or capitalization. Big deal, right? Actually, it is kind of a big deal when you consider how you can use this to your advantage. Let's take a look at a phrase that might be used when writing for SEO.
"south beach diet how"
Just try and fit that in one sentence and see if any native English readers will return to see what else you've written. But, since Google doesn't look at capitalization or punctuation this one is fairly easy to get into content that makes sense. Using that information you can write sentences like the ones below and actually look like you know something about the English language.
"You're going to live in South Beach? Diet how you want to but know that you're going to be scrutinized!"
"So, you want to try the South Beach diet. How do you know what to eat?"
As you can see, the keyword phrase exists in just the right order and the sentences actually make sense!