Taxes!

It's getting near the time that taxes are due. I just submitted mine with e-Filing and wanted to give a shout out to Connecticut. As a resident of NY but working in CT I get to pleasure of filing two state taxes. However all the tax softwares charge extra for a second state and I spend enough on the "Delux" version to get a single state.

Fortunately CT has an amazingly easy to use system online that let me file my CT taxes in about 15 minutes with just a few numbers from my Federal Tax return. And it's free!

I love good technology.

Survival Skills

LifeHacker.com has published some excellent web pages on "The Survival Skills Everyone Should Know".

 

"Be a Grown up Boy Scout" includes Wilderness skills for

• Know your priorities
• Learn Basic First Aid
• Build a Shelter and Fire
• How to Find Water and Feed Yourself
• Basic Hygiene
• What to do when Lost

"MacGyver, Survivalist, or Stockpiler" covers Urban survival skills

 

And "Survival books to keep on your bookshelf in case of the apocalypse"

 

Bottom Line

Under Urban Skills three kinds of Preppers are recognized:

• The Stockpiler: someone with a wide assortment of supplies but very little knowledge of how to actually do anything.
• The MacGyver: someone who can jury rig anything with duct tape, a pencil, and a pack of chewing gum.
• The Survivalist: someone who can find dinner in an old stump and keep warm using a roll of toilet paper and a rusty coffee can.

Which type are you?

15 Career Advice Sites

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
-Donald Kendall

WiseBread.com (Living Large on a Small Budget) recommends these 15 Career Advice Sites:

Getting Started - learning the basics
1. Job Search at about.com
2. Managing Your Career at Businessweek
3. Brazen Careerist
   
   Salary Comparision Sites
4. Salary.com
5. Glassdoor
6. Payscale
7. Indeed
   
   Social Networking
8. Facebook
9. LinkedIn
10. Your College Alumni Network
    
    Career Advice
11. LifeHacker
12. The Blog of Tim Ferriss, Experiments in Lifestyle Design
13. NYT: The Corner Office
14. WorkAwesome
15. I will Teach You To Be Rich

Bottom Line

Don't sit around waiting for the old jobs to come back. With computers making it ever easier to do more with fewer people, many old jobs are gone for good. Check out the sites above and create your dream job.

Free Preparedness Training

If you don't know where you are going, how can you expect to get there?
-Basil S. Walsh

Where there is no vision, the people perish.
-Proverbs 29:18

I recently got an e-mail from a person asking about Preparedness training.

Where to begin? There are so many different things to consider and it all depends on what you are Preparing for.

The FEMA site covering preparation for natural disasters is at http://www.ready.gov/
See also http://allreadystl.com/types-of-emergencies/ for a list of emergency prep documents by disaster type.

The LDS church has an excellent introduction to the basics at http://www.providentliving.org/

If you're worried about TEOTWAWKI (The end of the world as we know it) see http://www.survivalblog.com/ which covers surviving on your own - raising your own food, caring for medical needs, protecting yourself, etc.

You can receive free training by volunteering for the American Red Cross or a local CERT team:
http://www.redcross.org/  (drill down to Preparing & Training, then Preparedness Fast Facts).
http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/

FEMA offers free online training which are required for emergency workers, in particular IS100 and IS700:
http://training.fema.gov/IS/NIMS.asp

To learn more about 72-hour kits see my blog, 72-hour Kits, with links to resources.

Bottom Line

There is no shortage of information online. The hard part is knowing where to begin. Both the Red Cross and FEMA endorse:

Get a Kit, Make a Plan, Be Informed.

Which translates to

• make or buy 72-hour kits for your home, office and car. (see 72-hour Kits and Pet Go-Kits )
• make family plans for how you will respond to house fire and other emergencies. Where to evacuate to, whom to call, etc. (see Family Communication Plan)
• follow blogs like mine and check out the resources above. (see also FEMA tip of the week) 

Online Photos

I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away
- Paul Simon lyrics to Kodachrome

US News asks, "Is It Safe to Post Photos Online? It's a wonderful thing to share photos online but those photos can also be stolen and misused. Imagine your face used in an online dating service by someone not blessed with your good looks. Will friends believe you when you say, "But that's not me!"  Or your photo used by an advertiser without permission.

1. Check your online privacy settings.
Never allow everyone access to your photos. Restrict them to friends only.


2. Make sure you know who your friends are.
I have over 200 connections on LinkedIn. Are all these people really my friends? Do I trust every one of them? Consider de-friending anyone you don't trust 100%.

3. Disable the GPS technology before taking photos with a smartphone.
Even regular cameras are starting to apply GPS data to digital photos. When you post a photo with GPS data embedded, anyone can know where the photo was taken. Fun perhaps for a vacation photo but risky if the photo was taken at home.

4. Watch out for lower-tech ways of sharing too much personal information.
Your child's T-shirt could contain a school logo. Blur out your car license plate in any photos you post.

5. Don't post embarrassing photos.
Once posted, items on the internet may never die. Even dead websites can be brought back to life with http://wayback.archive.org/web/ or Google cache. Photo facial recognition is getting more and more powerful so in a few years it may be trivial for anyone to find online naked baby photos that match an adult face.

6. No means no.
If a friend or relative posts photos of your child and you don't want them to, ask them to take them down. If they refuse, some sites allow you to flag a photo as objectionable and taken down at your request.

7. Use a watermark.
Watermarks can be visible or invisible and will help prove that you own a photo if it's stolen and makes millions of dollars selling coffee. A watermark is an image or text that is mixed into the image itself.

Bottom Line

Share with friends but protect your photos.

Unclaimed Property

“Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.”
- George Soros

The Consumerist recommends Unclaimed.org, a free non-profit site that's a convenient portal for searching for unclaimed property state by state. You pick a state and unclaimed.org opens the official state website for unclaimed property searches.

Here's some info from Unclaimed.org's Q&A page:

What is unclaimed property?"Unclaimed property (sometimes referred to as abandoned) refers to accounts in financial institutions and companies that have had no activity generated or contact with the owner for one year or a longer period. Common forms of unclaimed property include savings or checking accounts, stocks, uncashed dividends or payroll checks, refunds, traveler's checks, trust distributions, unredeemed money orders or gift certificates (in some states), insurance payments or refunds and life insurance policies, annuities, certificates of deposit, customer overpayments, utility security deposits, mineral royalty payments, and contents of safe deposit boxes."

What happens to accounts that have no activity?"Companies are required by law to send funds from lost accounts to the state of the owner's last known address. "
"Most states hold lost funds until you are found, returning them to you at no cost or for a nominal handling fee upon filing a claim form and verification of your identity. Since it is impossible to store and maintain all of the contents that are turned over from safe deposit boxes, most states hold periodic auctions and hold the funds obtained from the sale of the items for the owner. Some states also sell stocks and bonds and return the proceeds to the owner in the same manner."

There are "Finder" companines that will charge you to search or notify you of money found in exchange for a finder's fee. But they don't have any more information than is available free to the public, so why pay them when you can find it yourself?

Bottom Line

How do I keep my property from becoming lost in the future?"Property becomes lost due to a company having no communication with the owner. You should contact institutions that hold your money or property every year and especially when there is an address change or change in marital status. For security reasons, most financial institutions do not forward mail. Keep accurate financial records and record all insurance policies, bank account numbers with bank names and addresses, types of accounts, stock certificates, and rent and utility deposits."

• Cash all checks for dividends, wages, and insurance settlements without delay.
• Respond to requests for confirmation of account balances and stockholder proxies.
• If you have a safe deposit box, record its number, bank name and address, and give the extra key to a trusted person.
• Finally, prepare and file a will detailing the disposition of your assets.

The Value of Free Goods

"We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free."
Ronald Reagan

Today I came across several instances of the value of "Free" at Techdirt.com,  a website offering "insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies ability to innovate and grow."  The site itself is an example of what it preaches. The blog is free, with no registration required, and an interesting daily read. The owner of the site hopes that you'll recognize his analytic skills and hire his company for personalized news and advice.

Google is another example of free (but with a twist). Originally Google hoped you'd be impressed by their free search engine and hire them to provide searches on your company documents and email. Now I wonder if they don't make more money from the ads shown while you google. Also Google's algorithms watch what you search for and what you pick from the list and they use this to improve future searches. So in essence you're doing work for google for free.

Anyhow, the first Techdirt story was about the TED Conference. The annual meetings on Technology, Entertainment and Design used to be by invite only and very secretive with non-disclosures signed by attendees. Only the rich and famous and powerful knew about it. Now you can watch past presentations for free at Ted.com. Instead of weakening the product this has created a HUGE surge in attendance, higher prices for seats, and sister conferences around the world.

The second story is about a Swedish truck company that discovered knock-offs of their trucks being made in China. They knew a lawsuit would be pointless so instead they worked with the Chinese company to help it find a truck design of their own that would sell and not be a knock-off. This is a classic Covey Win-Win story where free advice helped everyone.

Bottom Line

Free samples at stores. A free test drive of a car. A free download of trial software. A small free giveaway can lead to read dollar purchases of something larger.

Recession and Unemployment

“A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun.”~Thomas Carlyle

Officially the US Recession is over. A recession is defined as negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and since the US economy managed to show a positive return for the third quarter of 2009, voila, the recession is over. But as Paul Harvey used to say, now you'll hear "the Rest of the Story”.

1. The 3rd quarter may be an artificial blip resulting from the stimulus money and Clunkers for Cash.

2. It is entirely possible for the recession to resume. The Great Depression followed a recession and “recovery”.

3. We could be in for a “jobless” recovery. Companies return to profitability with fewer workers and no plans to rehire.

4. Even if companies do rehire, there is a lag period. You don’t hire during a sales slump. Only when the economy really picks up and people start spending again, will there be a new for companies to grow their work force.

Bottom Line

If you’re one of the 10+% Americans looking for work, http://www.bargaineering.com/ is publishing Bargaineering Career Week 2009 with lots of job-hunting advice.

Here is their list of the top job search sites:

SimplyHired – great for local job listings

Yahoo! HotJobs - one of the most popular employment websites. It will tell you how many people have looked at your resume.

Monster.com – one of the largest sites with 5000 new jobs posted daily

CareerBuilder.com – claims to have over 1 million jobs listed

http://www.craigslist.org/ - great for part time work and consulting

Emergency Essentials

“Helping People Prepare…for over 20 years." - Emergency Essentials

One catalog that I like to shop from for food storage and supplies is "Emergency Essentials". (website http://www.beprepared.com/). It reminds me of the fun I had as a kid looking at the old Sears Wish Book. I recommend signing up for a free monthly catalog and then looking at their monthly "Group Special". These "Specials" give low prices and free shipping within the continental US for orders of 12-20 of select items. For example the July group items are "Whole Egg Powder" (min 12), "Instant Mashed Potatoes" (min 12), and Leather Gloves (min 20). When my wife was the Emergency Coordinator for our church she would bundle orders from other families to reach the minimum order size.

One reason I'm discussing Emergency Essentials is that they have launched a new blog, http://www.preparednesspantry.blogspot.com/. I was hoping it would be informative about food storage but mostly what I see are daily/monthly sales and product pitches. The only educational article I found there was How Long Does Dehydrated or Freeze-dried Food Last After Opening?

Bottom Line

The http://www.beprepared.com/ website is a great resource with recipes, preparedness articles, 72-hour kit lists, and more. Check out the tabs at the top of the web page for topics. I'm not yet convinced that the new blog will be a great resource - perhaps they'll improve with practice.

72-hour Kits

“I've got a little list — I've got a little list”
– lyric from Gilbert & Sullivan’s, The Mikado

A friend and regular reader asked me recently about lists for making 72-hour kits. There are many sites online with check off lists and I’ve listed some of the best in my blog posting Survival Kits. The Red Cross has recommendations; see Red Cross - Get A Kit. However I’m not comfortable with the idea a master list – everyone’s situation is different (e.g. see Eyeglass Repair) and there are many purposes to which a kit may be applied.

Do you want a kit for every day home emergencies? (First Aid) A car kit for emergencies when traveling? (Stocking your car for Winter) A home kit to wait out a flood, tornado, etc until emergency personnel arrive? (Waiting for the Cavalry, Waiting to Be Rescued). A kit to grab when fleeing the house with little or no notice and heading to a shelter, hotel or friends house? (Fire at Night) Or a kit for surviving on your own in the wilderness? (Principals behind a good Survival Kit and You call that a knife?).

My favorite book for making a survival emergency kit is "Build the Perfect Survival Kit" by John D. McCann. He starts with the basics – what do I need to survive and how much space do I have to pack? With answers to those questions he can recommend items to include (Multipurpose Supplies). He describes kits ranging from wallet/purse sized (What’s Important in Your Wallet?) to a big box in the back of your pickup truck or boat.

It is also important to ask, “What emergency am I preparing for?” Beyond the basic first aid supplies, each emergency type requires different tools. See Right tool for the Right Job for more details.

A well-packed "bug out" kit goes beyond clothes, first aid and food (Meals Ready to Eat and other Options). Don’t forget emergency cash & papers (What's in Your Go Kit). When packing family kits do you make them the same or unique? (All your eggs in one basket)

Bottom Line

So what do I recommend?

1. Start with a complete survival kit for every car. This is where you’re most likely to be stranded without help or supplies due to a flat tire, dead engine or stuck in snow. You need food, water, warmth, rain gear, trash bags, and books/games. Stored water will freeze and may break open in cold winter areas so don’t pack “full” bottles. Also if you are forced to flee your home, odds are you’ll take the car. So the car kit can serve as your “flee the house” kit also.
2. Next are Home supplies. Build a well-stocked medicine cabinet for first aid. Establish an emergency cupboard with flashlights, facemasks, work gloves, tool kit, and other misc. supplies to deal with power outages, frozen pipes and other home emergencies. Build a three-month food & water storage so your family can shelter in place. (72 hours is too short. One week is the minimal recommended.)
3. Then maintain your kits. See Protecting your Go-Kit Contents and Don't forget to follow-up

How Much Food is Enough?

"I can't believe I ate the whole thing" - Alka-Seltzer 1970's commercial

There are several web sites that provide food supply calculators - plug in the number of people in different age brackets and the web page figures out how much wheat, flour, sugar, salt, etc. to buy for a one year supply. These sites assume you can cook. (See yesterday's post about storage using prepared meals.) If you don't want a year supply, just divide the amounts suggested or use a site that allows you to enter weeks or months.

http://www.thefoodguys.com/foodcalc.html
This detailed food calculator is based upon quantities suggested by the LDS Church's Home Production and Storage for a one year supply. (LDS = the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint, i.e. the Mormons). Since the LDS church encourages its 13 million members to store 1 year of supplies you'll find that many of the food storage sites are targeted to the LDS community. This particular food calculator requires just two numbers: the number of family members 6 and younger, the number of family members 7 and older. It provides a very detailed breakdown of food items to buy.

http://providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,7498-1-4070-1,00.html
A very simple calculator that works in US or Metric units. Enter the family size and the number of months you want and the calculator tells you how much grain and beans to buy. Provident Living is an LDS site with recommendations for food/water storage and financial planning

http://www.whatifcolorado.com/ekc/index.html
This site is provided by the state of Colorado as part if its "What If? Colorado" public education. The calculator and check list is for 72-hour kits only but I like it because one of the entries asks for the number of pets in your household. Don't forget the pet food!

http://www.simplylivingsmart.com/tools/food-storage-calculator-4.html
This site is new to me but appears to be run by two individuals with a passion for preparedness and a talent for making educational videos. Their calculator supplies 8 categories: fats, sugar, grain, bean, dairy, water, leavening and salt. All you need enter is the number of weeks, adults (ages 12+) and children.

Bottom Line
While helpful keep in mind that these calculators are tools. You must customize the results for your family. Will you need infant formula and diapers? Pet food? Do you have food allergies? The Simply Living Smart and Provident Living web sites use generic categories like "grain" so you must decide how much of the grain will be wheat, rice, oats, corn, barley, pasta, etc. Don't like barley, no problem, just buy some other grain instead. Example: suppose the calculator recommends 100 lbs of grain. You could satisfy that as follows:

40 lbs wheat
20 lbs rice
10 lbs corn
20 lbs pasta
10 lbs oats
-------------
100 lbs total