If you run a small business, keeping your receipts organized and accessible helps make tax time easier. And with estimated tax payments coming up soon, now is a good time to check out Shoeboxed.com, where you can mail-in or upload your receipts to organize them and get rid of clutter. The information can then be transferred to programs such as Excel, Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Evernote, Quicken, and CSV formats. If you scan and upload your receipts yourself, there is a free option. Or if you’d like to mail your receipts for scanning or use one of the mobile photo capture and upload options, there is a fee depending on how many receipts a month you upload. There is even an option to upload business cards.

To learn more or sign up for a free trial, check out ShoeBoxed.com.  Also check out ShoeBoxed’s blog for great articles on personal finance, taxes and more.

Have you ever been sent a link to an article only to discover that you have register to read it? At BugMeNot you can access shared logins for thousands of web sites so that you can read the materials without divulging your personal information. The most popular sites include the NY Times, NY Post, Washington Post, and Youtube.

There are two ways to use BugMeNot. The first is:

1) When you get to a site requiring a registration, open another tab or browser and visit www.bugmenot.com

2) Copy and paste the URL of site you want to access into the URL box on the BugMeNot website.

3) Use one of the usernames and passwords provided to access the page you want to read.

The second option is the use the BugMeNot bookmarklet.

1) Drag the bookmarklet found on the BugMeNot FAQ page to your toolbar.

2) When you visit a site requiring a log in, click on the bookmarklet for login information.

BugMeNot is only for websites that offer free materials. Don’t try it on sites that require a fee.

Visit BugMeNot to learn more.

When it comes to managing my life, particularly if I’m way from my computer, if I can skip or speed up a step I’m more likely to stay on top of things. Google Calendar allows me to quickly add events through my phone through SMS.  I simply scroll to Google in my contact list and choose the option to send an SMS, type my appointment and hit send. Google texts back that the appointment was received. I also use it to send my self to-dos and notes that I don’t want to forget.

To set up the mobile option with Google Calendar:

1. Visit your Google Calendar online.
2. Click on the “Settings” option.
3. Click on “Mobile Set up”
4. Check to see if your Carrier is supported.
5. Enter your country and phone number, and then click “Send Verification Code”
6. You’ll receive a message back with a verification number. Enter that number in the “Verification Code” field on in the mobile settings on your calendar. (If you don’t receive the code, you can request it again through the Mobile Set up in the Settings.)
7. Click “Finish Set-up”.

To send a text of a new appointment:

1. Add Google Calendar’s SMS number to your contacts 48368
2. Send a text to the SMS number. Enter the appointment, date and time for example “Dinner 3/4 8pm” or “Soccer Saturday 10am”
3. Google Calendar will text back that it received the appointment.

Appointments I made through Text (SMS)

You can also have Google Calendar text your appointments to you. To receive the next item on your appointment schedule text “next” (without the quotes) to 48368.  Text “day” to get the day’s appointments or “nday” to get tomorrow’s schedule.

In my attempts to save money, meal planning and grocery shopping has become more complex. I’m clipping coupons, shopping multiple stores to get the best prices, and planning meals around what’s on sale. Being domestically and organizationally challenged, this new way of cooking and shopping has been difficult for me to manage.

But I’ve just come across a great new web and phone app that can make it easier. Ziplist offers lots of great features to create a shopping list and plan meals. The shopping list can be organized by aisle or store. It can be shared with other members of the family so that they can add items.

Not sure what to make for dinner? Ziplist has tons of recipes and with a single click all the ingredients can be added to your list. It will even show you items that you may already have at home so that they aren’t added to the list. And if you find a recipe on another website, you can save it to your Ziplist recipe box.

When you’re ready to shop, you can print out your list or access it by through your SmartPhone (iPhone app coming soon).

To learn more or to create your own list, visit Ziplist.

Tired of unwanted mail cluttering up your mail box and your trash can? You can stop unwanted junk mail and catalogs by contacting the Direct Marketing Association. Visit DMAChoice.org where you can indicate what mail you’d like to receive and what mail you don’t. You can eliminate mail by category (credit offers, catalogs, magazines offers, etc) or by specific companies.

Give your mailbox a make over, visit DMAChoice.org

Frugality has become a necessity in this economy. Thank goodness for the Internet where we can search for great deals and discounts. The only trouble is that it can be a long process to search all the sites for your local deals, unless you use a resources like ShopLocal.com. Shop Local posts the weekly ads for a variety of stores in your community.  You can search by store (JC Penny’s, OfficeMax, etc), by category (automotive, clothing, furniture, etc), or by brand (3M, Apple, Black and Decker, etc).

I lists only major cities, but you can input your city by choosing “Change Location” at the top of the page.  I was able to put in my closest city that had major retailers and was able to access stores as well as specific brands and items that were on special.

Visit ShopLocal.com to learn more.

As you know, I’m a productivity nut because I’m organizationally challenged. I’m always look for great resources to keep all my tasks, notes and other materials accessible. SpringPadIt.com is a new web-based notebook site that offers all this and more. Much like Google Notes or OneNote, you can create a variety of notes to organize tasks and projects. It offers a variety of premade templates such as budget tracker and fitness tracker. A clipping feature lets you clip notes or recipes to save in your note book.  Springpadit also lets you flag (for priority), tag (for easy search), and write note on your notes. It offers drag and drop functionality to move your notes and items around for easy access. A big plus for me is that you can see all your tasks in one place across a variety of notes.

Because its a web-based program, you can also access other web-based resources such as restaurants, contacts, and maps. You can share your notes with others (with other users or through Facebook, Twitter and email) and have reminders emailed or texted (sms) to you or one of your contacts.

My only beef with the program is that I haven’t found a gadget to add it to iGoogle, and it doesn’t look like I can text notes into the program from my phone. But for a free service its very robust and easy to use.

Check out SpringPadIt to learn more.

PaceButler is offering a program in which it will buy your old cell phones paying up to $50 (even more for iPhones). The process is simple.

1. Gather your old cell phones.
2. Print a FREE shipping label from PaceButler.
3. Box and ship your phones.
4. PaceButler will cut you a check within 4 business days of receiving your phone.

But don’t expect to get rich. Most phones are only paying a few bucks. My Treo 650 is worth only about $5. But it’s $5 more than I have letting it sit in my junk drawer.

Besides helping individuals get money for their old phones, PaceButler also has a fundraising program whereby organizations can collect old phones from members of the community and receive money back.

PaceButler provides information on how you can recycle or donate your phone if you’d rather do that.

The other day I posted how you can set up your Google Calendar to send and receive text (SMS) messages to your cell phone. At the end of the post I indicated that I was still looking for a to-do program that would also allow me to send text messages. And it would be awesome if it integrated with iGoogle and Google Calendar. I still haven’t found the ideal to-do system that allows texting, but I’ve found a handful of other great resources that can help you be more productive through the use of text messaging.

Gubb.net: I’m testing Gubb right now as it’s the only to-do program that I’ve found so far that allows me to text to-dos to my lists. Gubb is free and easy to use. You can create multiple lists and share them with others which is ideal if virtual workers are collaborating. Each list is given its own email which can be used to email or text items to your list or you can pick up the list via your phone by texting “G” or “Get” to your Gubb List. There isn’t a plug-in for Google aps, but you can use the email alert option in Google Calendar to post items to your Gubb list. You just need to forward the alert to your Gubb email.

Remember The Milk: I have been using RTM because it integrates with iGoogle and Google Calendar. While it will text your to-dos to your phone, so far there is no way to text new items to your RTM list. To add to the list while on the road you need to use the mobile version of RTM to log in and add it to your list.

Call Wave: This program will convert your voicemail to text. It doesn’t give you the exact transcription of the voice mail, but you’re able to get the basics of message. Its not free but is have a variety of plans that range from $14.95 to $49.95 per month.

Email by text: Carriers provide SMS delivery of email. Your provider should be able to let you know how to set up your email to forward to selected items to your phone.

As you know, I’m a big fan of any application that make my life easier. Particularly if it can round up and harness the power of multiple applications. I use Friendfeed to feed my blogs and tweets to Facebook. For a time I was using TwitterUpdater to send my blog posts to Twitter, but for some reason, it stopped working. I tested Brightkit (now HootSuite), but my posts weren’t sent or there was a long delay. Then one of my Twitter buddies suggested HelloTxt.

HelloTxt allows you to post your status once and have it show up on all your other networks. One application to post to them all! You can also read your friends’ updates as well.

You can use the site to update your status or send it via email even from a mobile phone. It also has a WordPress plugin (which I use) so that your blog posts can show up your Twitter and other social networks. It works with about 40 social networks including Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Flickr and more.

Its free to use and easy to set up. To learn more and sign up visit HelloTxt.