If you're the kind of person who needs their daily fix of coffee and you refuse to brew it at home. Here's the next best option. Find a place that allows for refrills and go there every day. Not only will you save money but you'll help the environment as well. Win win!

Or best yet lobby your company to have free coffee. Site how it will increase productivity!

Editor: IRS newsletter

Nearly everyone can claim an exemption on their tax return. It usually lowers your taxable income. In most cases, that reduces the amount of tax you owe for the year. Here are the top 10 tax facts about exemptions to help you file your tax return.

1. E-file your tax return.  Filing electronically is the easiest way to file a complete and accurate tax return. The software that you use to e-file will help you determine the number of exemptions that you can claim. E-file options include free Volunteer Assistance, IRS Free File, commercial software and professional assistance.

2. Exemptions cut income.  There are two types of exemptions. The first type is a personal exemption. The second type is an exemption for a dependent. You can usually deduct $3,950 for each exemption you claim on your 2014 tax return.

3. Personal exemptions.  You can usually claim an exemption for yourself. If you’re married and file a joint return, you can claim one for your spouse, too. If you file a separate return, you can claim an exemption for your spouse only if your spouse:

• had no gross income,

• is not filing a tax return, and

• was not the dependent of another taxpayer.

4. Exemptions for dependents.  You can usually claim an exemption for each of your dependents. A dependent is either your child or a relative who meets a set of tests. You can’t claim your spouse as a dependent. You must list the Social Security number of each dependent you claim on your tax return. For more on these rules, see IRS Publication 501, Exemptions, Standard Deduction, and Filing Information. You can get Publication 501 on IRS.gov. Just click on the “Forms & Pubs” tab on the home page.

5. Report health care coverage. The health care law requires you to report certain health insurance information for you and your family. The individual shared responsibility provision requires you and each member of your family to either:

• Have qualifying health insurance, called minimum essential coverage, or

• Have an exemption from this coverage requirement, or

• Make a shared responsibility payment when you file your 2014 tax return.

Visit IRS.gov/ACA for more on these rules.

6. Some people don’t qualify.  You normally may not claim married persons as dependents if they file a joint return with their spouse. There are some exceptions to this rule.

7. Dependents may have to file.  A person who you can claim as your dependent may have to file their own tax return. This depends on certain factors, like the amount of their income, whether they are married and if they owe certain taxes.

8. No exemption on dependent’s return.  If you can claim a person as a dependent, that person can’t claim a personal exemption on his or her own tax return. This is true even if you don’t actually claim that person on your tax return. This rule applies because you can claim that person is your dependent.

9. Exemption phase-out.  The $3,950 per exemption is subject to income limits. This rule may reduce or eliminate the amount you can claim based on the amount of your income. See Publication 501 for details.

10. Try the IRS online tool.  Use the Interactive Tax Assistant tool on IRS.gov to see if a person qualifies as your dependent. 

Editor: Crass Cash

For those of you who want to retire in your 30's and even 20's there are some specific problems that you need to think about.  You need to think more in regards to cash flow rather than assets, but you still need to think about both.  

If you max out retirement accounts like I do you need to be aware that you won't have access to that money until you're 59.5 years old, unless you want to pay a penalty.  That's a problem if you want to retire 20 years before that.  This money is great to build, but it's almost like Social Security, you can't really factor it in yet.  

As a result you need to think in terms of cash flow.  What are your expenses and what does your revenue need to be?  And as a result where will my revenue come from and how stable will it be?  

To use myself as an example.  I generally spend on average about $3,000 a month on everything.  When the mortgage is paid off it'll drop to a little over $2,100 a month.  As a result I would need to find a way to make $3,000 off of my investments each month in order to sustain my lifestyle.  Also, I would need to make sure that those investments increase enough each year to keep up with future inflation.  (Hint: the less you spend the less inflation will impact you.)  Another way to think about this is that you need anywhere from 25 to 33 times your yearly expenses in investable cash generating assets.   

That's a big range in numbers, so think about it like this.  If you've got it all in stocks yielding 3% you're going to need 33 times your expenses.  If you've got it in real estate yielding 6% you're going to need far less.  If you've got it all in CD's yielding 1%, you're fucked!

So me for instance, I would need some where in the range of $900,000 to $1,180,000.  In all the calculations from all the different scenarios I've run I keep coming up with a very conservative figure of $1,100,000 net worth figure.  As a result that's what I'm shooting for.  Interestingly I already have the cash flow now to sustain my lifestyle, but it's really close and I don't want to risk something major in the event of a serious emergency.  

Paying off the mortgage would make a huge dint into what I need each month.  It would drop what I needed from $1,180,000 to around $832,000, which comes to about 4-5 years worth of additional savings.  It would be a drop in the bucket to pay it off in 25 years when the IRA funds become eligible without penalty, but by then it'll be paid off.  See the types of problems that you need to think about when you plan to retire extremely early?