* Charitable contributions
* Owning a clean-fuel vehicle
* Disaster relief contributions
* Prescription medicinces
* Stop-smoking programs
* Travel and transportation expenses
* Alimony

The rule of thumb on whether to itemize is simple: can you deduct more in mortgage interest, charitable contributions, state taxes, than the standard deduction? — $10,000 for married couples filing jointly and $5,000 for a single filer. Itemizing does take a little preplanning and organization in saving receipts and other paperwork documenting your expenditures.

If you are scrambling to retrieve those important papers that may be scattered hither and yon, consider investing in a spreadsheet, such as Quicken or Microsoft Money. Even if you aren’t tackling your own taxes this year, you could slash your tax-preparation fee in half. Microsoft.com says Microsoft Money 2006 can eliminate the paper chase, allowing you to sort out important tax information from day-to-day expenses, make educated tax investments and minimize capital gains taxes. Microsoft.com also recommends doing a little research on the front end to find out what can be deductible. The website suggests checking out MSN Money to learn about contributing to funds like IRA’s, ESPs, and OTPs, which may be tax deductible.

Here are a few deductions that www.msnbc.msn.com recommends you remember:

* Charitable contributions. If your donations are $250 or less, you do not need to include receipts. Any amount over that, however needs to be documented. According to the website, generally you can’t contribute more than 50 percent of your adjusted gross income, but under the Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005, you can waive that restrictions for donations between Aug. 28 and Dec. 31. In addition, the IRS says you can also use a higher standard mileage rate and exclude mileage reimbursements from income.
* Education expenses that can range from saving for your kid’s college to paying off your own student loans.
* Home-office expenses if you work at home.
* Medical expenses if they exceed more than 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income
* Miscellaneous deductions. According to the IRS, these can include depreciation on computers or cell phones, job search expenses, hobby expenses, military uniforms, safe deposit box rent, gambling losses, trustee’s administrative fees for IRA.

With a little research and organization, you can end up saving a lot of money by itemizing deductions. So throw away that shoebox you’ve used to store receipts. Its never too early to get organized.

The first step in creating a price chart is to go through your refrigerator and pantry and catalog the must haves the items you use at least once a month. Some staples in my pantry and refrigerator include onions, garlic, bananas, tomatoes, milk, cheese, orange juice, coffee beans, bread, olive oil, boneless, skinless chicken breasts and breakfast cereal.

After I compile a list of food items, I start recording the best prices I’ve found on the items, being sure to determine costs by size and packaging, as well. For instance, I know that I can find 6 oz cans of tomato paste, a staple in my Italian cooking, for $.25 apiece if I wait for a sale. That is about $.07 less than buying the cans in bulk at my local warehouse store. Because I almost always have the paste on hand so there is never an emergency situation, it is a better bargain for me to wait for a sale at my local market and bulk up then. However, nine times out of 10, it is a better deal to stock up on toilet paper at the warehouse store, where I can find a sturdy, good quality roll of 425 sheets for $.41 apiece. Keeping a price chart also allows you to quickly distinguish when a sale is really a sale.

I’ve found the simplest way to create a chart is on the computer and print it out. That way, my price chart ends up being a typed piece of paper that easily folds up and remains in my wallet where I can reference it at any time. In addition, having it on the computer means updates are simple. So the next time, you see a big sale on your favorite ice cream, you can quickly reference your price chart and determine that yes, it is worth hopping in the car and stockpiling a pint or two.

There is a psychological cost to owning too much stuff, as well. The more stuff you have the harder you have to work to keep it. The extreme of this is buying a giant house and expensive boat and then working 75 to 80 hours a week to pay for the slip in the harbor, the property taxes, the maid, the furniture to fill the massive space, and so on. When you are over-extended in this way, you have no time (or energy) to enjoy the house or boat.

On the whole, having less stuff is also conducive to clearer thinking. Have you ever noticed how simply cleaning your desk or office or living room promotes a feeling of calm and sense of clarity? Too much stuff is like static on the TV — you can’t really see the true picture in life. In the past two years, I have both borrowed and loaned maternity clothes. During my first pregnancy, during the summer in California, I only had to buy a handful of maternity clothes because most were loaned to me by a friend. After my second pregnancy, in Minnesota during the winter, I bought many winter and warmer items and have now passed them on to a sister-in-law who is pregnant.

Like the example above, sometimes it isn’t a clear-cut exchange. Maybe we won’t ever need something from that person who borrowed our cordless drill, but possibly they will loan someone else something someday. And sometimes the favor is returned in a different form. For instance, we’ve borrowed a ladder from a neighbor, and every time it snows, my husband takes his garage-sale bought snowblower and plows that neighbor’s sidewalk and driveway. Although I’m sure my husband would have done it anyway, it’s still an example how we each create a community when we reach out to others.

And by taking that step and knocking on a neighbor’s door, we also have a very good chance of striking up a new friendship, which is worth more than anything you can buy.

And according to a 2001 report on the NewsHour Extra by Jim Lehrer, by the end of 2000, Americans owed 7.2 trillion dollars in household debt. American families owed 100 percent of the money they earned from work.

Getting out from under that debt may seem insurmountable, but it is crucial to achieving financial freedom. The way to do this is to first take a month and log all your expenditures from that morning coffee to that monthly mortgage. Organize your expenditures in categories such as eating out, groceries, gas for car, entertainment, and so on.

After doing this, most people are astonished by how much of their income they are just piddling away with nothing to show for it. Then, carefully look at where you can cut. Depending on your motivation, you could shave tens or hundreds of dollars off that monthly amount. Whatever that savings amounts to, you need to allocate it to pay off your credit card with the highest interest rate. Keep making chunks of payments until it is paid off and then move onto your next debt until all you have left are low-interest rate student loans, a car loan and/or your mortgage.

Once you pay off all your other debt, then take that amount you spent on debt reduction each month and stick it in a money market account that will be readily accessible in case of emergency. When you have enough money in that account to pay for, say, six months of your living expenses, then it is time to start thinking about whether you’d like to start paying off your other debts: student and car loans and finally, a mortgage.

Some people are satisfied to stop right there, maybe keeping a mortgage for the tax write off and using the money they previously spent on debt for vacations or other treats. But there are some people who keep right on going until they are completely debt free and then invest their money and live on the returns. This is true financial freedom. It is tough, but it has been done. Those people who have accomplished this ultimate financial freedom, such as Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, the authors of Your Money or Your Life, claim to have found a richness to life that no money can buy.

If you start at age 25 and contribute the $14,000 maximum each year, you would have nearly $4 million by age 65, said John Demming, a spokesman for Vanguard in an article posted on www.kplctv.com, a Louisiana television station’s website. If you start saving in your 401K at age 40, you would have just over $1 million, he said in the article. Note: For 2006, the maximum was raised to $15,000.

A 401k retirement plan is basically a savings account financed by contributions out of your paycheck. The monies are contributed before taxes and then invested. The money is not taxed until you withdraw it from the account, ideally at retirement age. Early withdrawals are taxed and can incur a monetary penalty, except in a few special circumstances. If your employer offers a plan that matches your contribution, you can’t afford not to participate. That’s turning down free money.

According to Joshua Kennon’s “Your Guide to Investing for Beginners, there can be a big payoff from companies, such as Starbucks, which sweetens its recruitment pot with matching percentages for 401k contributions, He writes, an employee working at the coffee giant for over ten years earning $100,000 that contributed $4,000 to their 401(k) would receive a $6,000 deposit in the account directly from the company (150% match on $4,000 contribution.) Anything the employee deposited above the 4% threshold would not receive a match. According to kplctv.com, its worth checking out websites such as www.Smartmoney.com and www.morningstar.com that have online software and free calculators to help determine how much you should contribute to make your retirement goals.

So don’t walk, run to your HR department and get signed up. The sooner the better.