Paperwork with pet

Paperwork with pet - Don't You Dare Deduct These Expenses! - Every tax-filing season, the great quest by filers is to find the most tax deductions. But there are some deductions you should steer clear of.

If you claim these wrong write-offs, you'll deduct expenses that don't meet Internal Revenue Service guidelines.

And that means you'll end up spending time with a tax auditor and paying more in taxes, penalties and interest.

 

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Bankrate doesn't want that to happen to you, so we've put together this list of expenses you might be tempted to claim. Don't you dare!

But don't get too upset. We've also provided some related tax breaks that do pass IRS muster and will lower your tax bill.

Don't deduct homeowners insurance, but ...

The hazard policy you bought to cover damage from fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, winter storms and other disasters, as well as for more-routine mishaps, offers peace of mind. What it doesn't provide is a tax deduction for the insurance premiums.

But if you meet some tax law guidelines, you can deduct private mortgage insurance, or PMI on your 2012 tax return. PMI is the insurance your lender requires you to buy if you don't put down a big enough down payment. PMI premiums are deductible as an itemized expense (it goes on Schedule A with your mortgage interest claim) as long as the mortgage insurance policy was issued in 2007 or later. This tax deduction is in effect through 2013.

You also must meet income requirements. If your adjusted gross income is $100,000 or less (or $50,000 and you're married and filing separately), your full PMI premium amount is deductible. If you make between $100,001 and $109,000, the amount of PMI that you can deduct is reduced. And if your income is more than $109,000 ($54,500 married filing separately), you can't deduct PMI at all.

You can figure your allowable PMI deduction using the work sheet in the Schedule A instructions.

Don't deduct a telephone land line, but ...

You can't deduct the cost of your main home telephone land line, even if you primarily use that phone for your business. The IRS says that the first hard-wired phone line in your home is considered a nondeductible personal expense.

But you can deduct as a business expense the cost of business-related long distance charges on that phone.

If you are an employee, they would be claimed as an unreimbursed business expense on Schedule A.

If you are self-employed, you would count the phone calls as an expense on your Schedule C or C-EZ.

And if you install a second telephone land line specifically for your business, its full cost is deductible.

Don't deduct commuting costs, but ...

The cost of getting to and from your workplace is never deductible. Taking public transportation or driving to work is a personal expense, regardless of how far your home is from your office.

And no, you can't deduct commuting expenses even if you work during the commute.

But you might be able to deduct some commuting costs if you work at two places in one day, whether or not for the same employer. In this case, you can deduct the expense of getting from one workplace to the other.

You also can deduct some expenses related to other work-related travel, such as visits to clients (current and potential) and out-of-office business meetings.

If you're self-employed, these expenses would go on your Schedule C or C-EZ.

If you're an employee, travel costs must be claimed as unreimbursed business expenses. As such, your business and other miscellaneous itemized expenses must exceed 2 percent of your adjusted gross income.

Whatever your business travel situation, be sure to keep good records.

You also could encourage your employer to establish a commuter savings account program. This employee transportation fringe benefit lets workers use pretax dollars to purchase mass-transit passes and pay for parking near work.

Don't deduct your pet, but ...

Yes, your dog or cat is a family member. And yes, some insurance companies now include coverage for Fido or Fluffy in auto policies.

But your affection for your pet or an insurer's willingness to pay for some of your domesticated animal's care doesn't carry any weight with the IRS. So don't dare try claiming your pet as a dependent. Yes, it has been done. And yes, it is disallowed by the IRS when the furry facts are revealed.

You can, however, deduct as itemized medical expenses the costs of buying, training and maintaining a guide dog or other service animal to assist a visually impaired or hearing-impaired person, or a person with other physical disabilities.

Don't deduct Social Security taxes, but ...

You lose a lot of income each payday to Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or FICA, taxes, the money withheld from your checks to pay for your future Social Security benefits. The debate as to whether Social Security will be around when you retire is still raging. But one thing is sure: Don't even think about trying to deduct these taxes.

But if you overpaid this tax, you can get a credit for your Social Security overwithholding. There is a limit on how much FICA taxes can be contributed each year. The tax is withheld on up to the Social Security earnings base, which is adjusted annually for inflation, and which for 2012 is $110,100 and for 2013 is $113,700.

If you had multiple jobs and your combined earnings exceeded the wage base, you probably had too much FICA withheld. You can claim the excess Social Security tax as a credit when you file your tax return.

Don't deduct plastic surgery, but ...

If you simply are following your inner Joan Rivers, the IRS definitely won't let you deduct the costs of your nips and tucks.

The IRS specifically says you generally cannot include in deductible medical expenses the amount you pay for procedures such as face lifts, hair transplants, hair removal (electrolysis) and liposuction.

But if a surgery is medically prescribed, for instance, a nose job to treat respiratory issues, and you just happen to like the look of your new sniffer, then that's OK. The doctor's decision makes it a medical deduction.

The IRS says: "You can include in medical expenses the amount you pay for cosmetic surgery if it is necessary to improve a deformity arising from, or directly related to, a congenital abnormality, a personal injury resulting from an accident or trauma or a disfiguring disease."

Remember, all your medical expenses, including any allowable plastic surgeries, must come to more than 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income on your 2012 Schedule A before you can claim them. For the 2013 tax year, the medical deduction threshold is 10 percent of your AGI.

Don't deduct dry cleaning, but ...

Looking sharp at work rests totally on your shoulders. A recent U.S. Tax Court ruling reaffirmed this tax law when the judge disallowed a television anchorwoman's deductions for tens of thousands of dollars in clothing she bought to wear on air.

But you can deduct the cost of dry cleaning or laundry of business uniforms. Under the tax code, that means attire you can't wear anywhere else, although with the ways some folks dress today, that designation could be hard to nail down.

When an outfit is "not suitable for everyday use," the IRS says the costs of upkeep for the apparel can be claimed as an unreimbursed business expense on Schedule A.

Also deductible are the cleaning charges for nonprofit uniforms, for example, an outfit required of hospital volunteers or Boy Scout or Girl Scout troop leaders. Here the costs of the uniform and its maintenance would count as charitable deductions, also claimed on Schedule A.

Don't deduct time for volunteer services, but ...

Your time is valuable, but that doesn't matter to the IRS when it comes to volunteering at a charity.

You can't claim the value of your wages for the hours spent helping out at your favorite nonprofit. Neither can you count as a deduction the value of a project you created, such as a poster that you, a graphic artist, designed for the charity.

But you can deduct other costs associated with your charity work. This includes your mileage in connection with the group's work, which can be claimed on Schedule A at the rate of 14 cents per mile.

You also can claim as a charitable deduction unreimbursed out-of-pocket expenses.

As with all things tax, keep good records. Track your charitable travel and hang on to the receipts for the poster board and special markers you bought just for the nonprofit's poster project.

Don't deduct OTC medication, but ...

Headache and cold treatments from your neighborhood pharmacy shelves have never been tax deductible. There was some confusion here because for a while, the IRS allowed owners of medical flexible spending accounts, or FSAs, to use money in those pretax accounts to pay for over-the-counter drugs.

That option ended when 2011 began. Now you must get a doctor's prescription for OTC medications before the purchase can be reimbursed with FSA funds.

But you still can deduct diagnostic tests, such as store-bought tests for pregnancy and diabetic blood sugar levels.

And the IRS says moms get a tax deduction on breast-feeding supplies, including pumps and bottles, because, like obstetric care, "they are for the purpose of affecting a structure or function of the body of the lactating woman."

Don't deduct kids' overnight camp costs, but ...

When school lets out for the summer, working parents face a child care dilemma: what to do with the youngsters while Mom and Dad are at the office.

Some families send the kids off to summer camp. That's a great experience for the kiddos and eases, at least temporarily, parental child care concerns.

But sleep-away camps, in the summer or any other time of the year, are not tax deductible.

However, if you decide instead to keep the kids at home and simply send them to day camp during the hours you're working, that expense could qualify as a claim for the child and dependent care credit.

If your care costs are for one child, you can count up to $3,000 of care expenses each year toward the credit. The expense amount is doubled for the cost of caring for two or more dependents.

Your actual tax credit can be up to 35 percent of your qualifying expenses, depending upon your income. And while that might not seem like a large percentage, remember that since it's a credit, you get to use it to offset your tax bill dollar for dollar. ( Bankrate.com )

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Cuban Actors Disappear En Route to New York Film Festival Premiere

Cuban Actors Disappear En Route to New York Film Festival Premiere - In a case of life imitating art, a pair of young Cuban actors who were expected at the New York premiere of their film about defecting to the U.S. have disappeared after landing in Miami.

The film "Una Noche" is about three young Cubans who decide to flee the country on a raft after one of them is accused of assault. The film follows the day they attempt to make it 90 miles across the ocean to Florida. 

All three of the film's stars—Anailin de la Rua de la Torre, Javier Nunez Florian and Dariel Arrechaga—were expected to appear at New York's Tribeca Film Festival for the premiere. But Torre and Florian, both 19, were nowhere to be found the night of the event. 

Cuban Actors Disappear En Route to New York Film Festival Premiere (ABC News)

"Only Dariel Arrechada attended the Tribeca Film Festival premiere screening of 'Una Noche' on Thursday, April 19," a spokeswoman for the Tribeca Film Festival said in a statement. "We have not had any contact with Anailin de la Rua de la Torre or with Javier Nunez Florian." 

Tammie Rosen, spokeswoman for the festival, confirmed to ABCNews.com that all of the actors were invited to the festival. 

"We can't say for sure what the status of these guys are," Katie Tichacek Kaplan, spokeswoman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), told ABCNews.com. "There are a number of things they could be thinking. We just don't know what their plans are." 

Kaplan said that USCIS could not comment specifically on individual cases, but said that people in similar situations that come to the U.S. for asylum have a year to apply. 

A State Department official told ABC News, "We are aware of the reports but we don't have any further information. We have not been in contact with the film festival organizers or the Cuban actors." 

On the Facebook pages for the film and the actors, supporters have left messages of encouragement. 

"Congratulations on making your dream a reality, wishing you much success in the land of the free," one person wrote. 

Another wrote: "I'm glad you were able to get out. May God bless you." 

Representatives of the film did not respond to requests for comment, but Lucy Mulloy, the film's writer and director, told the Huffington Post, "I really was thinking that they were going to come here and enjoy the festival, and I thought they would love to participate in it. They made a decision, I guess." 

The British-born director recently graduated from New York University's graduate film program and "Una Noche" is her first feature film. 

She did not anticipate that her stars would not be at the premiere. 

"It is surprising," she told the website. "I mean, they had all of their family there and it's surprising. But things can be difficult in Cuba. There's an embargo and so there's a lot of challenges for people living in Cuba." 

Arrechada, 21, the one actor who did attend, told reporters he was alone in New York and planned on returning to Cuba, as planned since his visa was going to expire. 

"That's their choice, you know?" Arrechada said of his co-stars, according to the Huffington Post. "That's their way of thinking. No one is forced to stay. And no one is forced to go back. If you want to stay in the United States, I think, well, stay. If you want to go back, go back. Not all of us have to stay and not all of us have to go back. It's about what you want to do with your life." 

He told the website he believed his co-stars would stay in the U.S. 

A similar situation occurred in March when Yosmel de Armas, a Cuban soccer player, defected from his national team while in Tennessee for a game. Armas turned up in Miami earlier this month and is seeking asylum with the help of an immigration attorney. ( Good Morning America )

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Carrier Cash Cow?

Carrier Cash Cow? - Apple Inc. (AAPL) is expected to introduce the next iPhone model on Wednesday, setting the stage for a critical test of wireless carriers' efforts to bend the economics of the popular device to their advantage.

At stake is how profits in the wireless industry get divvied up and to what degree the carriers reap a return on investments in their newest networks.

In just a half a decade, the iPhone has become one of the most important influences on carriers' profits, and its influence is growing. Carriers like AT&T Inc. (T) and Verizon Wireless pay huge sums for the device and then sell it to their subscribers for much less, a profit-damping subsidy that sends billions of dollars in wealth to Apple.

Their subscribers, meanwhile, have increasingly been waiting for new iPhones to be released before upgrading their devices.

The carriers have fought back this year, introducing new upgrade fees to reduce the cost of subsidizing all those new iPhones.

But the biggest impact could come from new data plans debuting this summer, which should squeeze more money from subscribers hooked on the new phone's faster data speeds.

Among carriers the hope is that the new iPhone—running for the first time on the fastest fourth-generation networks— will change consumer behavior. Downloading videos and surfing the Web should be a more seamless, and more profitable, undertaking.

Validas LLC, a company that tracks wireless bills, surveyed 275,000 smartphone owners in the U.S. and found a big difference between data use by people who carry LTE phones. People carrying smartphones that weren't enabled for LTE averaged 500 megabytes of data per month in 2012, Validas found. But the average data use for an LTE subscriber was 1.2 gigabytes per month.

"These new devices and the apps that roll with them are going to drive more data usage," Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) Chief Executive Lowell McAdam told investors Friday. "As you move off of 3G and on to 4G your usage should go way up and your costs should go down."

Carriers have had a good run this year, with shares in AT&T up 24% and Verizon up 10%, fueled in part by better margins. Wall Street is debating whether that mainly reflects the lull between new iPhone releases or a more sustainable reworking of carriers' economics.

From the perspective of telecom companies, the economics of the iPhone boils down to trading high upfront costs for the promise of locking subscribers into higher phone bills under two-year contracts.

U.S. carriers' data revenue has indeed grown quickly since the iPhone was introduced in June 2007—$17.1 billion in the second quarter versus $5.2 billion five years earlier, according to UBS AG (UBS). But analysts have focused on the negative effects of those upfront costs.

This phenomenon is illustrated in the financial performance of AT&T, which became the first company to carry the iPhone.

In last year's fourth quarter, after the iPhone 4S went on sale, 12% of AT&T's cellphone customers upgraded to new phones and the carrier's wireless profit margin plummeted by a third to 29%, according to UBS. In the second quarter of this year, as many people waited for the new iPhone, just 6% of AT&T customers upgraded and the carrier's profit margin shot up to 45%.

To keep those swings from biting deeply into profits, AT&T and Verizon Wireless moved earlier this year to charge customers more for upgrades. Verizon imposed a $30 fee for some customers, and AT&T doubled its upgrade fee to $36.

The carriers are also being less generous than in prior years, when they allowed their subscribers to upgrade to new iPhones well before they completed their two-year contracts.

"We believe this approach lowers the risk that the carriers will capitulate to demand for a hot new device, as they did with some past device launches," UBS analyst John Hodulik said in a note to clients last month that detailed some of the carriers' moves to reduce spending on device upgrades.

More significantly, the new iPhone has the potential to trigger another jump in carriers' data revenue.

Verizon and AT&T have long done away with unlimited data plans for new customers in favor of tiered data plans. This summer, they took that strategy a step further with new plans that de-emphasize text and voice services in favor of more lucrative data packages.

The new iPhone could hasten the switch to the new plans. Verizon Wireless, co-owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group PLC (VOD.LN), says it will only sell discounted smartphones to people on tiered data plans, meaning that someone who signed up for an unlimited data plan when Verizon started selling the iPhone in January 2011 will have to pay full price to get the latest iPhone or switch to a tiered data plan.

AT&T, meanwhile, says that iPhone customers who want to use the video-calling feature FaceTime over the cellular network will have to sign up for one of the new plans.

In addition, people familiar with the matter say the new iPhone will run on a wireless network technology called LTE, which is faster than the 3G service iPhones currently support.

U.S. carriers have invested billions of dollars building LTE networks, but so far they aren't being used much. At the end of the second quarter, only 12% of Verizon's 89 million customers on contract were using its LTE network, the company said.

Carriers hope the new iPhone could finally prompt many of these customers to upgrade to LTE networks. That promises a double benefit: They handle data more efficiently and cheaply, and the faster speeds could prompt users to watch more videos, download more games and browse the Internet more often than they do currently.

"It is often the case that when a faster network presents itself, customer appetite for data tends to follow," said Bob Azzi, senior vice president of network at Sprint Nextel Corp. (S).

Sprint, unlike AT&T and Verizon, is offering customers an unlimited data plan, so it doesn't stand to make money from more data traffic.

The company is in the early stages of rolling out its LTE network and made an expensive bet last year to carry the iPhone in order to win new customers and keep others from leaving. ( The Wall Street Journal )


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1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed

1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed — The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.

A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.

Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that's confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

In this photo taken Thursday, April 19, 2012, Kelman Edwards Jr., working out at an apartment complex gym near the campus of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro,Tenn. The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work. A weak labor market already has left half of young college grads either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor's degrees.

Opportunities for college graduates vary widely.

While there's strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor's degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.

Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor's degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.

"I don't even know what I'm looking for," says Michael Bledsoe, who described months of fruitless job searches as he served customers at a Seattle coffeehouse. The 23-year-old graduated in 2010 with a creative writing degree.

Initially hopeful that his college education would create opportunities, Bledsoe languished for three months before finally taking a job as a barista, a position he has held for the last two years. In the beginning he sent three or four resumes day. But, Bledsoe said, employers questioned his lack of experience or the practical worth of his major. Now he sends a resume once every two weeks or so.

Bledsoe, currently making just above minimum wage, says he got financial help from his parents to help pay off student loans. He is now mulling whether to go to graduate school, seeing few other options to advance his career. "There is not much out there, it seems," he said.

His situation highlights a widening but little-discussed labor problem. Perhaps more than ever, the choices that young adults make earlier in life — level of schooling, academic field and training, where to attend college, how to pay for it — are having long-lasting financial impact.

"You can make more money on average if you go to college, but it's not true for everybody," says Harvard economist Richard Freeman, noting the growing risk of a debt bubble with total U.S. student loan debt surpassing $1 trillion. "If you're not sure what you're going to be doing, it probably bodes well to take some job, if you can get one, and get a sense first of what you want from college."

Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University who analyzed the numbers, said many people with a bachelor's degree face a double whammy of rising tuition and poor job outcomes. "Simply put, we're failing kids coming out of college," he said, emphasizing that when it comes to jobs, a college major can make all the difference. "We're going to need a lot better job growth and connections to the labor market, otherwise college debt will grow."

By region, the Mountain West was most likely to have young college graduates jobless or underemployed — roughly 3 in 5. It was followed by the more rural southeastern U.S., including Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. The Pacific region, including Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, also was high on the list.

On the other end of the scale, the southern U.S., anchored by Texas, was most likely to have young college graduates in higher-skill jobs.

The figures are based on an analysis of 2011 Current Population Survey data by Northeastern University researchers and supplemented with material from Paul Harrington, an economist at Drexel University, and the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. They rely on Labor Department assessments of the level of education required to do the job in 900-plus U.S. occupations, which were used to calculate the shares of young adults with bachelor's degrees who were "underemployed."

About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of bachelor's degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years. In 2000, the share was at a low of 41 percent, before the dot-com bust erased job gains for college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields.

Out of the 1.5 million who languished in the job market, about half were underemployed, an increase from the previous year.

Broken down by occupation, young college graduates were heavily represented in jobs that require a high school diploma or less.

In the last year, they were more likely to be employed as waiters, waitresses, bartenders and food-service helpers than as engineers, physicists, chemists and mathematicians combined (100,000 versus 90,000). There were more working in office-related jobs such as receptionist or payroll clerk than in all computer professional jobs (163,000 versus 100,000). More also were employed as cashiers, retail clerks and customer representatives than engineers (125,000 versus 80,000).

According to government projections released last month, only three of the 30 occupations with the largest projected number of job openings by 2020 will require a bachelor's degree or higher to fill the position — teachers, college professors and accountants. Most job openings are in professions such as retail sales, fast food and truck driving, jobs which aren't easily replaced by computers.

College graduates who majored in zoology, anthropology, philosophy, art history and humanities were among the least likely to find jobs appropriate to their education level; those with nursing, teaching, accounting or computer science degrees were among the most likely.

In Nevada, where unemployment is the highest in the nation, Class of 2012 college seniors recently expressed feelings ranging from anxiety and fear to cautious optimism about what lies ahead.

With the state's economy languishing in an extended housing bust, a lot of young graduates have shown up at job placement centers in tears. Many have been squeezed out of jobs by more experienced workers, job counselors said, and are now having to explain to prospective employers the time gaps in their resumes.

"It's kind of scary," said Cameron Bawden, 22, who is graduating from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in December with a business degree. His family has warned him for years about the job market, so he has been building his resume by working part time on the Las Vegas Strip as a food runner and doing a marketing internship with a local airline.

Bawden said his friends who have graduated are either unemployed or working along the Vegas Strip in service jobs that don't require degrees. "There are so few jobs and it's a small city," he said. "It's all about who you know."

Any job gains are going mostly to workers at the top and bottom of the wage scale, at the expense of middle-income jobs commonly held by bachelor's degree holders. By some studies, up to 95 percent of positions lost during the economic recovery occurred in middle-income occupations such as bank tellers, the type of job not expected to return in a more high-tech age.

David Neumark, an economist at the University of California-Irvine, said a bachelor's degree can have benefits that aren't fully reflected in the government's labor data. He said even for lower-skilled jobs such as waitress or cashier, employers tend to value bachelor's degree-holders more highly than high-school graduates, paying them more for the same work and offering promotions.

In addition, U.S. workers increasingly may need to consider their position in a global economy, where they must compete with educated foreign-born residents for jobs. Longer-term government projections also may fail to consider "degree inflation," a growing ubiquity of bachelor's degrees that could make them more commonplace in lower-wage jobs but inadequate for higher-wage ones.

That future may be now for Kelman Edwards Jr., 24, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., who is waiting to see the returns on his college education.

After earning a biology degree last May, the only job he could find was as a construction worker for five months before he quit to focus on finding a job in his academic field. He applied for positions in laboratories but was told they were looking for people with specialized certifications.

"I thought that me having a biology degree was a gold ticket for me getting into places, but every other job wants you to have previous history in the field," he said. Edwards, who has about $5,500 in student debt, recently met with a career counselor at Middle Tennessee State University. The counselor's main advice: Pursue further education.

"Everyone is always telling you, 'Go to college,'" Edwards said. "But when you graduate, it's kind of an empty cliff." ( Associated Press )

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93-year-old Florida woman retires her ’64 Mercury after 576,000 miles on the road

93-year-old Florida woman retires her ’64 Mercury after 576,000 miles on the road - These days, most people consider themselves lucky if a new car lasts 5 to 10 years. Make it to 100,000 miles in your vehicle, and the car company might make a commercial about you. That makes 93-year-old Rachel Veitch a notable exception. Veitch is retiring her 1964 Mercury Comet Caliente after more than 576,000 miles on the road.

"I am legally blind, so I can no longer drive my lovely Chariot," Veitch told FoxNews.com. "They don't have to take it away, I would not dream of driving that car again." The car itself is fine, but Veitch has macular degeneration in both her eyes, making her legally blind. After running a red light in March, she decided to voluntarily give up the vehicle she's been driving since Lyndon Johnson occupied the White House.

"I have taken it in stride," she said. "I don't have cancer, I don't have Lou Gehrig's disease. I am lucky."

Yet for all the miles she has put on her vehicle, it doesn't come close to the world record. The Truth About Cars blog wrote that Irv Gordon's 1966 Volvo P1800 is scheduled to reach 3 million miles this year. Gordon has held the record in the Guinness Book of World Records for most miles on a noncommercial vehicle since 1998.

Even without the world record, Vietch is fond of noting that the car has outlasted three marriages. Mechanically, it's worn through three sets of shocks, 18 batteries and eight mufflers. Veitch bought the car in February 1964 for just $3,289.

She credits the longevity to a "near-obsessive" approach to the car's maintenance. "I've never been a destructive person and I've just taken care of everything, except my husbands," she told FoxNews.

Veitch, who appeared with the vehicle on an August 2010 episode of the "Tonight Show," said she would be happy to sell the vehicle to host Jay Leno, a known car afficionado. She's not sure if Leno would be interested, but her four children, nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, aren't in line.

"It wouldn't matter if they did, they're not going to get it. They couldn't take care of it like I did," she told FoxNews. ( The Sideshow )

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55-Year-Old Grandmother Wants To Be Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader

55-Year-Old Grandmother Wants To Be Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader - She’s got the drive, the figure and the discipline of a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. But does Sharon Simmons have what it takes to dance alongside some of the most visible women in the world? She’ll soon find out when the Carrollton resident auditions to be a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader.

She’s also a grandmother of two.

“I’m 55. And in May, around the competition, I’ll be 56,” explained Simmons. “On stage, I blend right in with women in their 20s, 30s and up.”

Simmons was asked if she believes that there is a physical difference between her body and those of the 19-year-olds trying out? “Absolutely no difference,” she declared.

Simmons is an author and national fitness competitor who embraces what she calls “defining moments.” She had one last December, when she used the Cowboys cheerleader uniform as inspiration for a fitness costume. “I thought, that’s something I never tried,” Simmons said. “I always wanted to try out. I got real close in my early 20s, but got busy raising my daughter. And I thought, why not now?”

So, Simmons contacted her choreographer, who suggested a dance studio, who recommended seeking Audrea Cowen — a former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, now dance instructor at Plano’s K.J. Dance Studio — for help. The two work weekly on routines and fundamentals, both in group and private lessons.

Simmons said that her strength is in the competition itself. “I don’t get overly nervous,” she said. “I’ll be fine talking to the judges. I’m used to being on stage.”

But will that be enough to earn a spot among these high-kicking icons? Cowen said that dancing is an entirely different ballgame. “The flexibility required to be a cheerleader is greater than what she needs for fitness competition,” Cowen explained.

Sharon admits that, at 55, memorizing the fast-paced routines is tough. But she’s giving it her best shot, whether she makes it or not. “I love life. I’m having a blast. I’m having a ball.”

Simmons has 10 more weeks to rehearse. If she makes the squad, she will be the oldest cheerleader in NFL history — the current record holder is 42. The Auditions to be a 2012 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader happen May 5 and 6. ( CBSDFW.COM)

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Ten ideas for making money

Ten ideas for making money - Some of these you've heard before, and some you haven't. The last one is our favorite. I've shared with you some of my favorite posts about ways to make more money. Now I'm going to divulge some of the ideas we've been kicking around.

In no particular order:

Wedding invitation addressing.

Back in the day when the pen was more popular than the computer keyboard, a few people told me I should cash in on my penmanship skills by professionally addressing wedding invitations. I have no idea if people even pay for this sort of thing now that the computer has shown its dominance over the human hand, but hey, it's a thought.

Make T-shirts.

We could come up with a few T-shirt designs that would appeal to some sector of the population and sell them on Zazzle or somewhere similar.

Sell photographs.

I have some photographs I took many moons ago that I could try to sell via Etsy or DeviantART. This would involve converting 35mm to digital, but I bet the Internet can instruct me on that.

Monetize our websites.

Yes, websites, plural. Sneaky sneaky we are. You thought it was just this blog that we run, but actually A-Rob has a little secret site of his own. It's his professional musician website, but recently he's converted it to a blog and has been posting music-related stuff to it.

Since he's been operating under the same domain name for eight years, his SEO (search engine optimization) is pretty snazzy. We could look into one of the many options for advertising, or implement an Amazon affiliate program, or both. A-Rob also has some ideas for digital products he could sell through his site, similar to an e-book. Post continues after video.

Start another website.

There's a lot of buzz in the blog world about starting niche websites. This is a pretty complete article on the subject. I hear the key is having killer SEO so that people searching for information in your niche will find your site and then click on your ads. SEO is my arch-nemesis. I have neither the patience nor attention span to learn it. But maybe with a few cups of coffee I can get it figured out some day.

Invent a case that holds the iPad AND the Mac keyboard.

I've searched high and low for one of these, and the four in existence are all stinky. I'm thinking of making a prototype and going on "Shark Tank" with it. Or maybe just selling them on Etsy. Did I mention I don't own a sewing machine? This one might be a stretch.

Make something else. And also sell it on Etsy. Preferably something that doesn't require sewing, perhaps?

Surveys! I have to admit that doing surveys for money sounds like no fun at all. But I feel like I owe it to the blog to dedicate a month of my time to hard-core survey filling-out, just to see how much I can make.

Design house calls.

I could offer my services on Craigslist to help people pick out paint colors or finishes for their homes. However, my memories of "The Silence of the Lambs" may compel me to hire a bodyguard in the event of a Buffalo Bill situation. That may eat into my earnings a bit.

Chair sprucer-upper.

I have this idea for a business where I would pick up old chairs and tables at yard sales for dirt cheap, then tighten their loose joints, sand them down, and throw a coat of primer on them. Then people can come buy a chair and paint it whatever color they want, or pay us to paint it for them.

Ideally this business would operate out of a storefront in the artsy part of downtown and would have a gourmet coffee shop attached. I'd call it "Bones." But since I won't be opening up a shop anytime soon, I could sell the rehabbed chairs on Craigslist, or maybe look into a crafters' co-op.

I could probably go on if I stretched my brain a little more, but 10 ideas seems like a nice round number, don't you think? We've pretty much settled on three of these ideas. We'll be putting them into action this month, when the selling of the stuff is complete. Which reminds me, I have a pile of CDs I need to tend to, so I better scoot.

Have you tried any of these methods for making money? Do you have any of your own? Do share! ( msn.com )

Blog : Everything For Money
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Ten Ways to Find Customers with Mobile Marketing

Ten Ways to Find Customers with Mobile Marketing - Smart business owners find customers by placing their marketing messages where the most eyeballs are focused. And nowhere are there more eyeballs than on the screens of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

More than two thirds of the world’s population has a mobile subscription, and mobile users are highly active. Facebook recently reported statistics indicating that over half of its 500 million subscribers access Facebook from a mobile device and exhibit twice the activity level of non-mobile users. The time for mobile marketing is now.

Finding customers with mobile marketing involves either pulling people toward your messages or pushing your messages out. Here are 10 mobile-marketing channels that'll help your efforts:

Text-messaging (SMS)

Pull customers to your SMS messages by asking people to opt-in to your text-messaging list. Use a text-messaging provider such as eztexting.com or motomessage.com to access a short phone number known as a common short code and an opt-in keyword. Then, use the text-messaging service to push periodic text messages out to the people who opt in.

Multi-media messaging (MMS)

MMS messages are like SMS messages, but they can contain pictures, sound and a lot more text. Pull customers in with the same opt-in process as SMS, and then push out multi-media content via your MMS service provider.

Mobile email

Pull customers to your email list with signup links on your website or ask people to text in their email addresses to join. When you push your emails out to mobile users, ask for mobile-friendly actions such as clicking phone numbers instead of links or using the mobile device to show an email coupon at the point of sale.

Mobile search

People searching online with mobile devices are often looking for a nearby product or service. Pull customers to your business by including mobile-friendly maps and directions on your site. Push your location out to new potential customers by asking your customers to check in on their favorite social media service when they visit your physical location so their friends see where they are.

Mobile Internet

Pull mobile visitors to your site by advertising your site's address or by including a mobile barcode -- also known as a Quick Response or QR code -- in your advertising that points to your site. Push messages through your site by formatting content and navigation to be mobile friendly.

Mobile apps

Pull customers to your mobile apps by listing your apps in the app stores and by offering app downloads from your own mobile site. Then, push your marketing messages through the downloaded apps.

Mobile content

Pull customers to content such as videos, images and downloads by providing links and mobile barcodes that activate the content. Push that content by posting to mobile-friendly sites such as YouTube or your own mobile site.

Mobile advertising

Pull customers to your advertising by placing ads on external mobile sites such as mobile versions of newspapers, blogs and other content sites. Push your advertising out by including ads in your e-mails, text messages, mobile content and branded apps.

Voice

Pull customers in by advertising your phone number. Push your messages out by answering the phone or by using Interactive Voice Response systems to answer calls and deliver voice messages automatically.

Capabilities and enablers

Mobile devices come with built-in capabilities and enablers such as cameras, WiFi, and GPS. Pull customers in by asking customers to use their capabilities. For example, taking a picture of a product and e-mailing it to you for a discount. Push your messages out in reply to people who use their capabilities by using one of the aforementioned nine channels.

Have you attempted a mobile marketing campaign? Let us know how it worked for you in the comments section. ( entrepreneur.com )

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Popular Cannes film reflects "Arab Spring" spirit

Popular Cannes film reflects "Arab Spring" spirit – A film about a woman taking a stand against men in a North African village won cheers in Cannes Saturday, with some viewers moved by its expression of the spirit of the "Arab Spring" uprisings.

A small handful of critics also booed during the packed screening of "The Source," directed by Radu Mihaileanu, later telling journalists they found its depiction of Arab life over simplistic.

But the overwhelming majority of critics in the audience praised its resonance with real-life events, saying they would not be surprised to see it scoop a big prize at the annual film festival.

The Source was the last of 20 films shown in the festival's main competition ahead of the closing ceremony Sunday where the awards will be announced including the Palme d'Or for best picture.

Also premiered Saturday was "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia," a slow-paced, subtle examination of cruelty and betrayal by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

The Source opens by declaring itself a fairytale in which Leila, the beautiful and feisty wife of teacher Sami, declares a "love strike," or ban on all sex, until the men in her village agree to carry the water from a spring high in the mountains.

In a time of economic hardship and unemployment, men sit and sip tea all day while women lug heavy loads up steep paths.

Leila decides to take a stand when her friend falls and loses her baby.

Men and women fall out, with violent consequences. Women bicker about the value of tradition over change while conservative clerics try to exploit the village's divisions.

"NEED FOR MORE REVOLUTIONS"

Mihaileanu, a Romanian-born French director, told a news conference in Cannes that the film was partly a reflection of the recent uprisings in Tunisia and across the Arab world.

"There has been tremendous hope since last December. There is hope for freedom and a strong desire to get rid of those in power and there is the idea of people deciding their own destiny," he said.

He added that revolution on the streets of Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Bahrain had yet to be matched by a change in people's homes.

"There is a second revolution which is essential, which is the revolution in the home, and the place of women in the family. Women should be made equals at home as well."

The director, who is Jewish, said the idea for the film came from a true story in Turkey.

Leila leads the battle in the village, confronting the village imam and quoting from the Koran in defense of her case.

She is defended by one of the film's most colorful characters -- Mother Rifle, whose words are "like bullets," played by Algerian actress Biyouna.

Turkish entry One Upon a Time in Anatolia follows a group of police officers and a doctor as they look for the corpse of a murder victim buried in the countryside.

Light on plot, it has nonetheless won over critics with its craftsmanship. ( Reuters )

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