December 2010

10 Lessons from 2010

It is New Year’s Eve. Another year bites the dust. There are a lot of New Year resolution posts in the blogosphere and I have my share of them coming next week.   2011 will also be a milestone year for me in terms of my age. Today I was thinking about what I accomplished in [...]

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Summary of 2011 Tax changes – cuts, credits, deductions, exemptions and energy credits

President Obama signed the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 on December 17th. I wrote about what the major tax cuts would mean to us, a common person. There is more than just tax cuts in this tax deal. I didn’t realize some of these credits/deductions are expiring. For example, [...]

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New Years Eve Party ideas – fun & frugal

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Are you hosting a New Years Eve party? You might have drained a lot of money on Christmas gifts and celebration. Believe it or not, you don’t need to spend a lot of money to have a great New Year Bash. It is the creativity and the enthusiasm of the host that sets the party [...]

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After Christmas sales

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We had a great day. Had an elaborate lunch with some friends, in the evening we went to see the lights. Speaking of lights, there were less number of houses with holiday lights this year. I don’t know if it is the economy or the storms in CA or [...]

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Holiday Tipping Guide – How much and to whom?

I got a Christmas card from my newspaper delivery person. This reminded me about holiday tipping. I never know what is the normal “going” rate for holiday tipping. For some jobs it was customary to tip, but this list keeps growing every year. So I decided to do a little research to come up with [...]

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Restaurant Gift Cards – Holiday promotions, a comprehensive list

[A lot of these promotions expired after the 2011 holiday season. I will update this list around Oct/Nov for 2012 holiday season] We spend a lot on eating out through out the year. One of the ways we save money when eating out is to buy gift cards during the holiday season for restaurants that [...]

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What does the Tax cut deal mean to me?

Update: This bill has been approved and signed into law on December 17th, 2010. President Obama has signed into law the tax cut bill to temporarily extend the Bush tax cuts for all Americans, including the wealthiest.  This deal not only extends the tax cuts from the Bush era but also adds some concessions made by [...]

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