College Grad Lessons

This post was written for Twenty-Something Writers, a new blog that promotes writing, sharing ideas and motivating each other to sit down and write. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t already.

As twenty-something writers, most of us are students or young professionals that wouldn’t mind making some extra money. Although writing might be something that you just do for fun, you can use your blogging and other writing to help land freelance or part-time jobs.

I’m attending grad school full-time starting this fall and have been looking for a part-time job. I currently work full-time as a web developer and training specialist and recently interviewed for a part-time/contract web design position with an interactive design firm. One of the samples I sent to the firm was a blog template that I built for WordPress, so the person interviewing me asked if I had experience writing. Although I hadn’t planned on talking about College Grad Lessons (something that I do for fun and still needs a lot of work), it was the perfect writing sample for web content. The positive response that I received regarding my blog made me realize that I should consider freelance/part-time copywriting as another type of part-time job to pursue during grad school.

As a twenty-something writer, here are ten freelance/part-time jobs to consider:

1. Copywriter - Search job postings and contact local PR and design firms to find potential copywriter positions. Send a link to your blog and few other writing samples and highlight your computer skills.
2. Blogger - Blogs are becoming increasingly popular for small business marketing, but business owners often lack the time to research and write blog posts related to their business. Watch local job postings and search for businesses with blogs that need more or better content to find potential blogging jobs.
3. Web Content Editor - Small businesses and design firms may be interested in hiring a web content editor to edit copy and add content to web sites. Look for job postings with WordPress listed as a desired skill.
4. Tutor - Local schools or private companies may be looking to hire English tutors. Also consider posting flyers or an ad in a school newspaper to find interested parents and students. In high school, I tutored as a part-time job and made a decent amount of money. In addition to helping students with homework, you could offer creative writing lessons. (more…)
   

Over the past two years I’ve used Turbo Tax to file my taxes because I parents always buy it and I usually was home often enough to find a time to sit down and fill it out. Plus I typically just had one W-2 and only few thousand dollars of income. Since I had multiple jobs in 2008 and now work full-time, I decided it was worth researching what tax filing method would work best for me.

My needs were as follows:

• Input multiple income sources (W-2s)
• Document my savings account interest (minimal) even though I didn’t have the 1099
• Document my “scholar” money that I didn’t get a W-2 for, but wasn’t used for tuition (so had to be claimed)

Initially I looked into H&R Block’s TaxCut. Someone told me it was free (under a certain income level) and easy to use. I created an account but ran into issues because I had the data needed, but not some of the forms. H&R Block’s TaxCut asks for numbers in certain boxes of form if you answer “yes” to having that type of income in 2008. Since I didn’t know what box numbers were what on the form, I was afraid that I would fill it out wrong.

At that point, I decided to wait to file my taxes for awhile. I thought I might get the forms in the mail, but didn’t. I did a bit of research and decided that using Free File from the IRS web site would probably be easiest. I gathered up all of my documentation and a calculator and filled out the form online. It was nice and easy. Personally, I liked using the actual form much better than a user interface that asks you questions and fills out the form for you. It was easier for me to figure out where everything needed to go on the form and why it was being asked for since I could see the entire form at once. After using Free File for my federal tax return, I used a similar program for the State of Maryland. In a couple of hours, my federal and state tax returns were filed and I had received an e-mail confirmation saying they were being reviewed.

A couple of weeks later, I have my tax returns in my savings account and don’t have to worry about April 15.

How did you file your taxes or what method are you planing to use this year?