Our sister site, SayLowerBills.com is the place to go to find ways to save money, particularly when it comes to managing your bills. With economical pressures in play, you need every bit of assistance you can get to help balance your budget — there is only so much cutting back that a person can do!

One way that families are making ends meet is to start a side business, one which allows stay at home moms to make some extra income or for Dad to supplement his income. Some part time businesses are managed by husband and wife, allowing one or both to step in to relieve the other.

7 Tips To Starting And Managing Your Home Based Business

Starting any business takes planning, research which you will need to do in order to lay out a business plan. The following seven tips are designed to help you get started:

Hatch A Plan — If working for yourself, you need to develop a plan on exactly what you want to do. Will you be selling a product? Offering a service? Or will you be providing affiliate referral sales? On a sheet of paper, list the details of your business including inventory, cost of goods, selling price, targeted consumer group, etc. You may be the best seamstress in the world, but that doesn’t mean that people will beat a path to your door to buy what you have. Be realistic!

Investigate Your Options — The internet can help you find out a lot about your business. Search for small businesses or individuals selling what you have to offer and see how they are structured. You won’t have to copy what they do, but you can figure out ways to improve upon their business model.

Consider Funding – How much money will you need to launch your business? You may already have a number of resources available to you including a computer, printer, and internet connection, but if your business requires additional funding to buy equipment, how will you pay for it? The Small Business Administration offers limiting funding, but will that do? Consider a bank loan, borrowing from your 401(k), a home equity loan, or borrowing money from family members or a friend.

Investigate Your Legal Responsibilities – In some states you may need to form a legal business in order to market what you have to offer. Contact your state’s Department of Corporations or Small Business liaison to learn what you must do. Consider setting up a separate business with an employee identification number (EIN) and business checking account. The IRS can help you with your EIN; an attorney with the establishment of a business.

Set Up A Work Area — Do you have a room in your home where you can manage everything? Even if your business is teaching piano to school aged children, you may need to have some sort of paper trail in place. Programs such as Quicken can track your business transactions; various software programs can help you handle your remaining business tasks.

Establish A Routine — No business will succeed without the establishment of some sort of routine. This means setting up a schedule when you will work and when customers can contact you. Working parents would do well to inform customers about their limited availability when children are present or not sleeping. Most customers will understand your restrictions as they likely have had children of their own.

Persevere — Many small businesses fail within the first few years because their owners have unrealistic expectations, poor planning, lack of interest, improper funding, etc. Side businesses can continue on indefinitely if you have a clear understanding of what you need to do. Adjust your business as often as needed and keep the big picture at hand: working for yourself can help your family and give you something to fall back on.

Do What You Want To Do

Most of all, find a business that you like. Just because you can make money managing people’s travel arrangements doesn’t mean that you like to do this type of work. Successful business people are those with a passion to do what they’re doing and keep at it through thick or thin.

Should you work for yourself? That is a question only you can answer, one that will gradually unfold over time.

Tags: IRS, self employment, small business, state government, work at home

When the U.S. Treasury starts sending out economic stimulus package checks this June, the hope is that the billions of dollars of money received by eligible citizens will be poured right back into the economy to give it at least a temporary boost. If you are a politician, you hope that the boost will aid your constituents, some of whom have been hard-pressed to make ends meet over the past year.

At the very least, the checks will aid some political pros as they seek reelection this year. Okay, a bit of a cynical remark on my part, but not too far from the truth!

Although politicians are hoping that you will spend your money, early surveys are indicating that one-quarter of the recipients will put their checks into savings while a near-equal number of citizens will use the funds to pay off debt. The remaining recipients will probably spend their money with some doing it with reckless abandon while others will look at their checks as a special opportunity to spend their money wisely.

If you fall into the latter group of recipients, the following tips can help you get a lot of bang out of every buck received, especially if you own your home:

Pay Down Your Mortgage. If you still owe money on your home, why not consider applying your check to reducing your mortgage burden? Deposit the check in your checking account and send an equal amount of funds to your mortgage lender, stipulating that the funds are to be used to reduce your principle. You could shave several months off of your mortgage term by taking action now.

Start a Home Improvement Project. If you are handy around the house and have considered replacing windows, adding a sliding door or taking on some other small project, you can expect that when the checks start to go out that some hardware stores and home improvement centers will be running terrific sales. They want a piece of the package and the one way to entice you in is by dropping prices. Those $1500 French doors could drop to $1200 just in time for your project to begin.

Hire A Contractor. If you aren’t handy around the home, contractors would love to do the work for you. Those three or four electrical or plumbing issues around your home can be handled in one fell swoop. Use your stimulus check to pay your electrician and plumber and enjoy your new fixtures thanks to the check you will receive.

Each of these three tips do the same thing: add value to your most important investment, which is your home. One thing to keep in mind about the economic stimulus package is that you’ll have to file your 2007 federal tax return in order to qualify. Other rules and restrictions may play in, so visit the IRS’ site for more information.

Why not plan your home improvement project now to see just how far your stimulus check could go? Use a budgeting worksheet to make planning a snap.

Tags: economic stimulus package, Home Improvement, income tax check, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, tax rebate, US Treasury