Thanks to all of you who headed over to www.twitter.com/kablog to follow me. I’m still tweeting everything I spend with the exception of my regular fixed expenses. How many times does someone want to read:Mortgage $977 or Student loan $96.65?But if you want me to continue tweeting those expenses, let me know and I will.

While gone, I missed having the blog, especially when the urge struck to write something complicated, like the  explainer  on student loan changes from today’s paper.  Can’t do that in 140 characters!

In the weeks to come, I’ll write about car-shopping, credit card changes, savings and debt payoff.

But being a little sleep-deprived and new to juggling three, I’m hoping you’ll make my job easier.

What are the personal finance issues your family is facing? Any money matters or financial trends you’re seeing or reading about that drive you nuts? Questions about investing that you don’t want to pay an adviser to answer?  Know any inspiring folks who got out of debt? Live next to the most frugal family known to man?  Hankering to be a guest blogger for Ka-Blog?

I hope so!. Email kara.mcguire@startribune.com or comment on this blog post. Some of my best ideas come from nuggets delivered by readers like you.

It’s good to be back.

While I’m on maternity leave, Ka-Blog! won’t be updated. However, there’s no way I’ll be able to turn off my deal-watching, penny-pinching, money-musing nature. So keep in touch with me via Twitter, where I’ve been tracking every penny I spend and making money observations since Jan. 1.

Why Twitter? I figure 140 characters is about all a mom with a newborn can handle!

If you’re new to Twitter, head to www.twitter.com to sign up. You can find me at www.twitter.com/kablog. Hit “follow” to receive my tweets. Then read and reply often.

I definitely fall into the latter category. I will skip a donut to save $35.

But currently, consumers aren’t given that choice. Banks just let the transaction go through and laugh all the way to the, er, bank.

The Federal Reserve is currently looking at whether this should change. Should banks give consumers the chance to opt-in to pricey overdraft programs. Or should they have the right to opt-out?

Opting-in is preferable to opting-out because inertia will have more people sticking with the protection by default, even if they can’t afford to.

Have an opinion? You have until March 30th to share it with regulators.

Shoot an email with the subject R-1343 to: comments@federalreserve.gov. Or use this form created by Consumers Union.

And I thought I was bad for even pondering the deduction of makeup and Kara playing TV personality outfits for the Dollar Duo! I didn’t take the leap, which you might be able to tell based on my outfits and non-TV hair.

Add your own stretching the tax law deductions below (don’t worry, you can do it anonymously).

1) Arizona small business owner seeks deduction for toilet paper bought from his home
2) Wife donates cheating husband’s belongings to Goodwill, seeks $51,000 charitable deduction
3) Oklahoma business owner files a $2,000 check to a gynecologist as “repairs and maintenance”
4) Cleveland woman attempts to not only deduct Jacuzzi for medical reasons, but also attempts to deduct mood lighting, underwater speakers and a in-tub stereo system
5) Texas woman digs up the older trees in her backyard and donates them to charity. The IRS allowed this deduction
6) A Texas couple who’s unmarried but living together decides to file as a married couple, resulting in a messy situation
7) 85 year-old woman gets a deduction for ballroom dance lessons one year, only to attempt to deduct more dance lessons, a ball gown, and cruises with her 20 year-old dancing instructor the next year
Pet lover attempts to write off dog food as an expense for his “home security system”
9) Woman claims subletter renting a room in her house as a new “nephew” despite him being over 20 and not related to her

Read the rest of this  NYT story here.

Perhaps this is why my gut reaction when invited to two out of town weddings in the next year was “no way we can afford to go” instead of “these will be two meaningful events and we can’t miss ‘em.”

Every day it seems like the stock market is heading in the wrong direction. I even stopped looking at my 401K because it only mockingly informs me that retirement is getting further and further away. And like most families, I too am cutting back on as many expenses as I can, and one way I found is to look within my kitchen cupboard to lower my food bill. 

The previous night I had made an entire ham. Although it was a great meal as well as an economical lunch the next day, I was not sure that I could take having ham one more time without repackaging it into something a little different. But what could I possibly do with it?

I decided to see what the Internet had to offer, so I Googled “leftover ham” and in .24 seconds I had 283,000 results at my finger tips. I scanned through the results taking into consideration what ingredients I had in my kitchen as well as what would be simple to make.

Since then I have used Google several times to piece together a meal with ingredients that I already had in my kitchen. Sometimes I have to venture to the store to pick up a few things. Sometimes the meals are good and sometimes they are not so good, but in either case it saves a little money and gets my culinary juices flowing. By simply searching for ingredients that I had in my cupboard, I have been able to prepare inexpensive dinner alternatives.

No more do I open the cupboard and stare into the abyss of cans, boxes, and jars wondering what I can make for a meal. Now I let Google help me plan mealtime.

Well, new research shows that how much you spend can also depend on what denomination of cash you have.

University of Maryland Marketing Professor Joydeep Srivastava and his team found that people tend to think twice about making a purchase when they carry one large bill rather than smaller bills equal to the same amount of money. For example, you’re more likely to hang onto a $20 than 20 $1 bills.

“If you want to cut back on your spending in this tight economy, keep your cash in a few big bills vs. a number of smaller ones,” said Joydeep Srivastava, associate professor of marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, co-author of the research. “In the face of the temptation to spend, you’ll be more reluctant to break that hundred-dollar bill so you’ll end up saving it.”

However, there can also be a “what the hell” effect when it comes to big bills. Once you break it, there’s a chance that you’ll spend more money than if you were carrying small bills.

“Unfortunately, once you break a big bill you’re less likely to pay less attention to the total amount you spend,” he said. “You’re more likely to throw self-restraint to the wind once you’ve released the impulse to buy.”

The research will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. It follows previous research by the pair that finds consumers spend more when using credit cards or gift cards instead of cash.

I think the research is interesting, but I believe that everyone handles money differently. Since I’m so used to charging everything, paying close attention to whether I have enough money to pay the balance in full each month, I find that I have a “what the hell” effect every time I have cash.

How about you? Do you see yourself in these studies?

From IRS Spokeswoman Carrie Resch:
The IRS will open more than 250 local offices across the country from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tax return preparation is limited to people who earn $42,000 or less, but there is no income limit for people needing assistance with other services at Taxpayer Assistance Centers.

In Minnesota, the IRS Super Saturday sites are:
• 250 Marquette Ave. in Minneapolis and
• 30 E. Seventh St. in St. Paul (nearest entrance to the IRS center is on Wabasha, across from Walgreens)

Super Saturday sites hosted by community organizations are located in Anoka, Bloomington, Brooklyn Park, Fergus Falls, Hopkins, Minneapolis, St. Cloud and St. Paul. Locations and hours of operation of all Super Saturday sites are available at IRS.gov, keyword Super Saturday or by calling 1-800-906-9887.

People who want their tax returns prepared should bring:
• Valid driver’s license or photo identification
• Social Security cards and dates of birth for all persons listed on the return
• All income statements: Forms W-2, 1099, Social Security, Unemployment, or other benefits statements, self-employment records and any documents showing taxes withheld
• Dependent child care information: payee’s name, address and Social Security Number or Taxpayer Identification Number.
• Routing and account numbers for direct deposit or debit
• Prior year tax return (if available)
• Any other pertinent documents or papers

For those who don’t want to make a trip, the IRS also offers other free services for tax preparation including the Free File program on IRS.gov. IRS customer service telephone lines, 1-800-829-1040, also will be available on Super Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. to answer tax questions.

The first is about how many trees are saved by switching from paper checks to direct deposit.  According to the PayitGreen Alliance:

If you are paid twice a month and used direct deposit instead of paper checks, you would single-handedly:
- Save one pound of paper.
- Eliminate the release of four gallons of wastewater.
- Eliminate the release of one pound of greenhouse gases (equivalent to: not driving four miles and half a square food of forest preserved for 10 years).
- Save a business $176.55.

If every US worker with access to direct deposit used the service instead of receiving paper checks we’d:
- Save 11,082,971 pounds of paper.
- Avoid the release of 105,709,380 gallons of wastewater.
- Save 4,105,889 gallons of gas.
- Avoid the release of 31,581,675 pounds of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Equivalent to: 112,329,703 miles not driven; 1,345,379 trees planted (and grown for 10 years) and 13,756,978 square feet of forest preserved.

Those are some big numbers.

A new survey by GfK Roper also found that families going green can save money in this economy. For example, 76 percent have bought energy efficient light bulbs and 58 percent have purchased energy saving appliances. Consumers are also considering gas mileage in their next vehicle purchases more than ever before (81 percent up 15 points from 2007).

But some eco-conscious consumers are still willing to pay more for some items, like purchasing paper products made from recycled papers (72 percent), green household cleaning products (64 percent) and environmentally-safe laundry detergent (57 percent).

That said, economic concerns are causing more Americans to focus on saving money over going green. The number surveyed who said the environment is a greater concern than the economy dropped from 69 percent in 2007 to 55 percent in 2008. And I bet that number will decline in ‘09.

Apparently there have been anecdotal stories of church attendance rising because of the economic crisis. Have you seen this at your own congregation? Started attending church in the last few months because of the economic crisis?

I have seen a growing number of religious groups delving into personal finance topics, offering Financial Peace University or classes on Buddha and the economy, for example. I figure that’s for a couple of reasons: Churches are looked at as a trustworthy place for information. Also, churches with financially healthy members will benefit when it sends around the collection plate.