So, April 15 is right around the corner, and with it, the dreaded looming day to pay Uncle Sam. If you earned too much money last year and are looking for some ways to trim your tax bill now, as well as next year, look no further.

If you need a break now and have a few extra thousand dollars kicking around, now is a great time to invest that spare cash in a traditional IRA. Make a regular (NOT a rollover) contribution and see how it reduces your adjusted gross income. This will lower your tax bill across the board, though the maximum deduction is dependent upon your modified adjusted gross income total and also your filing status and cohabitation situation (where applicable).

When I pitched the idea of “how to get a better deal on a car” to the illustrious Wallet Blog editor, he came up with a sneaky strategy to make sure you drive down the price as low as possible.

Get a car loan from the dealer, even if you don’t need one. Allow the dealer to sell you a loan with a ridiculously high interest rate, but MAKE SURE that there is no penalty for paying off the loan ahead of schedule. The dealer will make a higher commission on a loan with a higher interest rate, which will make them more likely to agree to your low-ball offer on the car.

I remember reading a profile of the now-dearly-departed Fred Rogers in Esquire magazine about 12 years ago. Mr. Rogers was looking up at a clock and commenting on how big it was, and wouldn’t it be nice if we would all wake up one morning and concentrate on doing something small, not big. Quiet, not loud.

Shortly after that, I heard the first rumors of a new-wave of cooking, called “slow food.” Italians had a festival celebrating the time-consuming recipes of their grandmothers; they held the festival outside a McDonald’s, as I recollect.

There has been some talk about a ‘Cash for Caulkers’ program that would refund homeowners 50% of their costs to renovate their properties in order to make them more energy efficient.  The program,officially called Home Star,  is unofficially being dubbed ‘Cash for Caulkers,’ and represents another effort in getting us out of the recession.

The program is obviously trying to emulate the Cash for Clunkers program, which helped stimulate the auto industry.  While I agree that Cash for Clunkers was a great idea, it was not without its faults.  Most notably, though it put people into new cars, it did nothing at all to make America more competitive on the global market.  What Cash for Clunkers did, essentially, was to tell the American people, “don’t worry about the recession; buy a new car!”  The day after buying their new car, however, Americans saw more unemployment, more banks failing, and more homes going into foreclosure.  It didn’t solve the real problem.  The money set aside for the Cash for Caulkers program will likely have the same effect:  it will make Americans spend money, but it won’t do anything to really end the recession we’re in.

Food is one of the major line-items in my family’s budget. In my goal to save more money this year, I’ve been trying different ways to slash-and-burn my grocery bills. Allow me to share my hard-earned do’s and don’ts with you. Some might sound strange. It’s OK; when saving money is concerned, I have no pride.

Do shop at non-grocery stores: Many of the big-box stores have been increasing their grocery offerings. Seems you can hardly turn on the TV without seeing an ad about money-saving groceries at Walmart, but I’ve found another big-box store with surprisingly good grocery deals; if you have a Big Lots store in your area, check out their grocery aisles. They offer name-brand breakfast cereals, as well as canned and snack-food items you may never have heard of. They’ve been a particularly good source of canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, and canned beans, at prices at least $.25 less than my typical grocery store. (It’s better to go in with an open mind rather than a set menu, though I found black-eyed peas there in time for New Year’s Day, which was a pleasant surprise).

Pets can be a serious line-item in your yearly budget. A yearly vet physical can set you back anywhere from $30 to hundreds of dollars, depending upon whether the veterinarian finds anything wrong with your fuzzy, feathered, or scaly companion, to say nothing of the unexpected costs that arise when your pet is ill or suffers an accident.

I first became aware of pet insurance when my kitten, Maxwell, got into a scrap and had to have his face drained (sorry, TMI). I never signed up for it, though. It just sounded like a hassle and I wasn’t convinced the benefits would outweigh my assumptions.

In a recent Market Watch article, David Weidner commented that Citibank is attempting to create a new product, the CLX, which acts as insurance against financial collapse.  The product sounds, as Weidner deftly points out, a lot like the Credit Default Swaps that helped cause our current recession.  It involves the same risks and is being endorsed using the same shaky justifications.

The problem with financial products like the CDS or the CLX is, first and foremost, that it is unclear who covers the ‘bet.’ If financial collapse does happen, and Citibank is to make good on their CLXs, what guarantee is there that Citibank will be in a position, post-collapse, to honor its obligations?  And if it isn’t in a position to honor those obligations, who does?  What’s clear after the fallout of the CDS scandal is that the responsibility of paying off the debts of ‘too big to fail’ financial institutions inevitably falls on the American tax payer.