Running or starting a small business can put a substantial strain on the pocket book, but with a little stewardship your small business can thrive on limited cash flow. Remember not everything needs to be new or brand name. Often with a little bit of research, you can find the supplies, clothing and tools you need at substantial savings.

Take this College Grad Student wearing a thrift store sports coat. With limited finances he is able to add credibility to himself and his speech/presentation by looking professional in a quality used sport coat. Proving the point that small businesses can present the image they need, while getting the job done with limited cash flow.

Saeler Enterprises started overnight when the company I was working for, Global Presence, closed it’s doors suddenly. I had left my Full time job at AOL just weeks earlier and was dependant on the income from the sub-contracting I was doing for the company. I had to really crank out the work to keep above watter financially, but still had limited cash flow.

Here are some of the Cost Saving tricks that helped my business stay afloat:

Know your localThrift and Second Hand Stores – Thrift and second hand stores have personalities as unique as theoir donors and the charities they support. Get to know the stores in your area by visiting them a few times seperated by a week or two. This will allow you to see the quality and type of merchandise they tend to carry.

For example locally we have:

•  The Miracle Center (provides women with hope, transitional support, self-esteem, and tools that will break the cycle of poverty and addictions), is a great source for furniture, housewares and electronics.
• Casa De Los Ninos (Focused on the prevention and intervention of child abuse in Tucson, Arizona, through shelter care for children aged infant to 11 years old), is an excellent source of furniture and housewares.
• First Rate Second Hand (benefits Tucson synagogues and Jewish agencies in their works, like giving aid to katrina victums), has an exqusite selection of antique, furniture, housewares, and mens dress clothing.
• Deseret Industries (The Mormon Church started the Deseret Industries chain of thrift stores in 1938 mainly to create jobs), excellemt source of mens dress clothes.

Upgrade your Computers, instead of buying new -

The average business doesn’t need a Lamborghini to get the job done, just a good reliable vehicle. most business software isn’t going outstrip the resources of a Pentium 4 with a decent video card, memory and hard drive storage.

Most people who end up buying a new computer complain that the old computer was too slow. Usually it’s not the machine, but the software. Over time the operating system becomes bloated and tries to run too many processes at one time.

So instead of spending $600 or moreon a new machine, consider an upgrade of a few parts, have your system tuned up and spend one third of the cost of a new machine.

Like Timothy Geithner I do my taxes with TurboTax. But unlike our  Secretary of the Treasury, I read the questions it asks (Like the “did you have any 1099 income”).  It can take quite a bit of time to do your taxes if you don’t have your expenses organized the way TurboTax likes and there isn’t a way to quickly copy the catagories. So here they are TurboTax’s common Expense Categories.

Home Office
Real Estate taxes, mortgage, interest, rent, utilities, homeowner or renters insurance

Vehicles
Record Individually -  gas, oil, tires, repairs and maintainance, insurance

Assets
Computer, copiers, cell phones, office furniture

Inventory
Cost of gods sold, storage, packing and handling

Supplies
Pens, paper, calendars, data storage, other supplies related to copiers printers, mailings

Communication
Second phone line, long distance, cell phone service

Taxes and Licenses
Payroll and unemployement, business licenses and permits

Advertising
Business cards, yellow pages, web ads, brochures, mailers, flyers

Business travel
Air, train, bus fair, hotel, rental

Meals and Entertainment
Meals while traveling, entertaining your clients

Insurance Payments
Health, long term care, liability

Interest payments
Business Credit Cards, loans, and property

Legal and Professional Fees
Fees for business related legal services, association memberships

Commissions
Finder’s fees, sales commissions, legal referrals, shared commissions

Contract Labor
Sub-independent contractors, additional project support

Repairs Maintenance
Painting, plumbing, electrical, computer

Utilities for home office
Business office only – doesn’t apply to us

Other Office Expenses
Pick up delivery, data back up, bottled water etc

Miscellaneous Expenses
Answering Services, Bank charges, business related gifts

Here are a few Hostgator Coupon Codes for use with a new account:

• Coupon code “jury”- $9.94 Off
• Coupon code “hgc25″ – $9.94 Off
• Coupon code “Hostcritique” – $9.94 Off

In these economic times, sites like Frugal Mom can be quite handy when it comes to streatching a dollar.

“Frugal living is a way of life; a way of life that some choose, but many do not. Perhaps you need to practice frugal living because your husband has just lost his job and you need to conserve your finances. Or maybe you chose frugal living because you would like to stay home with your children, or you are saving for a new vacation. “

Don’t take our word for it, visit FrugaMom.net

Trying to cut costs and in your business and personal life? Want to spend more time with the family?

Check out KidsMealDeals.com

This site is still growing, but offers information on meal deals in many cities across the country. You can also participate by sharing meal deal information with other visitors.

Points.com lets you manage your reward programs in one convenient location. You can book hotels, swap, earn, buy, share and redeem points.

They also have a Balance Tracker you can:

• Check account balances
• See personalized suggestions

Click Here to visit Points.com

The Rosie On The House home improvement radio show aired an episode on first time home buyer resources.

First-time homebuyers can get a lot of help from federal, city and state governments and Rosie put a list of them togeather on his website.

Swapstyle is an online fashion swap party where you can Swap Clothes, swap accessories, swap cosmetics, swap shoes and lots more with people from all around the world at any time, day or night. And it’s Free! Imagine browsing at your leisure through an extensive international fashion wardrobe and choosing exactly what you want.

It only takes minutes to register, then you’re on your way to updating your fashion wardrobe, and the only thing you pay for is the postage.

Swapstyle goes far beyond the traditional home-based fashion swap parties. It’s convenient, saves time, and offers so much more variety.

Click Here to Learn More

America’s Cheapest Family and The HomeEconomiser Newsletter are dedicated to encouraging you to find creative ways to live within your means, avoid debt with a smile, and achieve goals you never dreamed possible.

Their web site has hundreds of ways you can start saving money.

As 2008 comes to a close, it’s time to make the annual organizational adjustments to the websites in order to improve efficiency. I like to do this at the end of each year because the holidays provide for a bit of breathing room from the responsibilities of client projects.

Any webmaster will tell you it’s difficult to manage large numbers of websites. This problem is compounded by the fact that each change you make to organization can possibly lead to new issues. For example consolidating your blog and website may lead to broken links, or images. Or your website might contain too many different concepts, reducing your search engine rankings and making it difficult to find pages to edit.

The strategy that I am implementing this year is to completely separate the different aspects of the business in order to provide a better marketing presentation.

Saler.com is now nothing more than a portal to the other sides of the business, allowing me to focus on placing web design information on the Design & Development & Training site your-propeller-head.com, Free Internet Marketing & Development resources on your-propeller-head.org, Royalty Free Graphics on purelysupp.com, Book software & Equipment Store on purelysupp.net, and Website Templates on purelysupp.org.

This places each aspect of the business in it’s own website. The trick is to ensure that each item you add to a website goes on an appropriate website.