Latest Good Reads

State Tax Revenues Rise for Third Consecutive Quarter

The Twelve Days of Tax Season

When is No Tax Increase a Tax Increase?

3 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make While Building their Businesses

A Record Number of Americans will File Tax Extensions this Year

Savings Experiment: Carpooling

From WalletPop.com:

Everyone knows that carpooling can save energy and it diminishes traffic. When many people use only one vehicle to get to the same place, fewer resources are used up. But does the money it saves passengers really make much of a difference to your pocketbook?

According to the AAA, the average American one-way commute to work is 16 miles, so most of us travel an average of 32 miles a day just to get to and from our jobs. Using the commute computer at RideFinders.com, a ride-sharing portal, we found a savings of more than 50% for people in car pools.

Assuming a vehicle costs 59¢ a mile to operate five days a week (a typical figure under stop-and-go conditions over 15,000 miles a year), we can do a little math and find that when split equally among all members of the car pool, the per-person price for fuel, car maintenance, paring and tolls plunges by half or more compared to solo commuting.

That car will cost about $4,680 a year to get to and from work. Start splitting that among passengers, and the per-person cost plummets. For two people, the per-passenger savings is $2,340 per year. Split between three people, the per-person savings is $3,120 per year; instead of shouldering the whole $4,680 cost, each person in a three-person pool pays only $1,560.

Carpoolers also can become productive during a significant portion of their day. Instead of manning the steering wheel every day, the passengers in a car pool can spend their time doing more productive things, such as reading the news, writing, catching up on books, texting family -- for a 45-minute commute, that's like getting another hour and a half of your life back when you're not driving.

Black Friday 2010: Buy American

As our economy continues to struggle, many Americans are looking for ways to help. According to WalletPop.com, one of the best ways consumers can help with economic recovery is to ensure items you buy are made in the country. Especially as we get closer to the Black Friday holiday, where many taxpayers do most of their holiday shopping. Check out the following article from WalletPop.com.

It's the rare story about retailing that doesn't garner reader comments about where the products are made. It's also the rare retailer that makes the effort to stock only American made goods. Deborah Leydig is one of those retailers. Her Barrington, Ill. business stocks exclusively products made in this country, something that has become increasingly difficult to do.

"Deborah Leydig is in search of a can opener manufactured in the U.S.," opens a story in the Chicago Tribune. "The artist-turned-merchant had been stocking the iconic Swing-A-Way can opener, but had to stop this year when production moved overseas."

For decades, American companies have been outsourcing labor and relying on foreign production to stabilize businesses at home. Over time, it incurs cost to the environment, negatively affects our employment rates, and discredits our claims of sustainability. In a utilitarian sense, trade and commerce with other economies are of course necessary, but, is it healthy for us to rely on foreign systems? Especially when we are so proud of being self-reliant.

Leydig is just one example of a well-intentioned business owner trying to save jobs in the U.S., and she is not alone. Conscious consumerism is on the rise. Americans are buying environment-friendly goods, fair-trade products, and locally grown or made food at increasing rates.

Continue reading at WalletPop.com…