Cut your taxes and stretch your budget. Check out the government's blue light special.

If you lose money in the market, there is always a chance you can get it back in time. Lose money to taxes and it's gone forever.

So say IRA and tax guru Ed Slott and other experts who've been thinking about ways to shelter as much of our collective $4.5 trillion Individual Retirement Account savings as possible from what may be higher taxes ahead. You can't cut a $1 trillion-plus federal budget deficit in half without squeezing somewhere, the mavens reason. And despite promises to the contrary, you can't count on just the other guy getting squeezed.

But you can minimize the damage. A whole bunch of recent tax changes make it a lot easier to convert traditional IRAs into Roth IRAs, but just in 2009 and 2010. The costs of converting are low now too, thanks, if that's the word, to the way the markets have whacked many of our retirement savings.

Here's how it works. IRAs give you two choices. You can put $5,000 ($6,000 if you are 50 or older) into a traditional IRA and deduct that contribution if you are willing to pay income taxes on the money when you pull it out. Or you can forget about the deduction for now, put the money in a Roth and pay no taxes when you withdraw it.

You also can convert your traditional IRA to a Roth, though you will pay taxes on what's in the account when you make the switch. It's not much consolation if your retirement savings have taken a 25 percent or greater hit, but markets like these really trim the tax bite if you convert.

There is even one-time break for taxpayers switching soon, say contributors Michael Slemmer and Ben Norquist to the FPA Journal. Taxpayers who convert in 2010 can delay recognizing part of their additional taxable income until 2011 and 2012.

There are a slew of details to wade through to see if converting makes sense for you specifically. Your friendly tax professional or financial advisor will be glad to help you sort things through. They want the work too.

Hoarding unemployment checks, $2 at a time

Getting angry about junk ATM fees that eat up your unemployment benefits is one thing. Putting up with it when you don't have to is another.

Here's the deal. About 30 states, including Missouri and soon, Kansas, pay unemployment benefits by loading the weekly benefits onto reloadable debit cards instead of mailing checks to our houses. It's pretty nifty when the system works.

But growing numbers of jobless workers are getting steamed because ATM and other fees that banks charge all card users also apply to the unemployment cards. Those typically range from $2 to use an out-of-network ATM up to maybe $20 if the equivalent of bounced-check coverage is offered. It's not a fortune, but unemployment benefits don't leave room to waste even a little money. Now, some fees apparently are headed higher too.

You can get out of paying many of these fees, however. As often is the case when money's tight. you can spend time and shoe leather instead.

I'll go past maybe a half dozen ATMs in our neighborhood to reach one that won't charge me $2 for a withdrawal. I also pull out enough cash to cover a group of planned purchases such as gas and groceries instead of using the card at each stop. Retailers can freeze part of your account to cover purchases you make. That can cause you headaches if they don't re-thaw them before you need to buy something else.

This isn't rocket science, but you may need to read some of that boring terms-and-conditions fine print more closely than usual to figure out what will work best for you. Kay Bell and the always helpful contributors to Bankrate.com outline some of the things to look for. The specific bank or financial instituition your card actually comes from can tell you online where the free ATMs are.

Is it a mortgage bailout or home maintenance?

Rick Santelli's rant notwithstanding, bailing maybe 9 million homeowners out of a mortgage jam doesn't seem that costly if you compare it to do-it-yourself projects around the house.

Financial planners and budget counselors I know generally recommend budgeting about 1 percent of your home's value for maintenance and repairs, plus about 2 percent more if you plan significant remodeling. That's between $1,970 and $5,910 for a national median $197,000 home, or $1,440 to $4,320 at Kansas City median prices.

Spending $75 million to clean up those 9 million shaky mortgages works out to a bit less than $1,140 apiece if you divide it among the rest of the nation's total 75 million homeowners who don't have troubled loans. It goes way lower if the nation's 36 million renters kick in too.

Now look at what the money potentially buys. Reuters reportsRick that a record 64 percent of recently surveyed homeowners report that nearby defaults have eroded their own homes' values.

Realty Trac found that 3 in 10 potential buyers of foreclosed homes expect to pay about half price for the property. Avoiding that has got to be at least as profitable as recouping maybe 85 to 90 percent of what you spend remodeling a kitchen or bath.

Surviving a job loss - the collateral damage

Another 627,000 souls hit the unemployment line. There are nearly 5 million of us out here by now, or a bit more than the entire population of Colorado.

And it is getting weird. A Fed economist in San Francisco predicts we're on the way to losing more jobs than anytime in the last half century. But surprisingly many people seem to believe losing a job will never happen to them.

More kids go to school sick because Mom or Dad doesn't want to risk a pink slip. And psychologists, who are still employed, but Lord knows why, come up with fancy names for the shock, fear and pain they think we feel.

We've talked before about some of the immediate things to do if you lose a job. I'd say, bet it will happen and map out what you'll do next. Then, even if you keep your job, you're still better off than before.

What if the economy doesn't recover?

I think my wife and I are dropping out of the middle class this year.

Or so it seems after reading a recent Parade magazine piece about some wildly differing estimates of where middle class begins. No way our household income will hit even the bottom rungs of some of the definitions that relief efforts use.

We aren't alone, of course. Retail maven Howard Davidovitz predicts things will get worse before they get better and he sees a sea change ahead for a long range foreseeable future as we realize we can't have it all.

If he's right, anyone lucky enough to have money may find tough going too. One new challenge of financial planning may be dealing with changed relations with your less fortunate friends and acquaintances, Business Week suggests.

But there is always hope. And, according to contributors to Forbes, there are always ways to make a buck investing in downsizing too.

Tax refund IOUs...an economic sedative?

Coping with big tax refunds isn't something I know a lot about. Unfortunately.

But what if, as appears to be happening in California and almost happened in Kansas, the tax collectors send us IOUs instead? That can't be good for economic stimulus.

We always get a lot of advice this time of year about how to use refunds prudently. We ignore a lot of it, of course. Tax time windfalls can be too sweet not to splurge on something. And as J.D., a blogger I watch at GetRichSlowly.org, showed a while back, you can make a case for not following conventional prudent advice too.

If you are really counting on that money, your most likely individual choice now will be to tough it out, just as you do when your paycheck shrinks. You can try to catch up when the money does come. But all our bills could be bigger by then, and the money may just vanish in the sand the way last year's $300 and $600 stimulus checks seemed to.

Maybe the Crazy Ike Furniture Outlet, Discount Phone and Mattress stores can help. They are on the air now screaming helpful suggestions about using our tax refunds. And they often advertise no-money-down, no-interest-now outside tax season. Just moosh the two ads together.

Use your income tax return as a financial planning tool

We all have two questions about our tax returns. Will I get a refund? How big is it?

But love it or hate it, that Form 1040 can be as useful as a Swiss army knife in putting your own long range personal financial plan together. Best of all, you don't need sophisticated green eye shade skills to get started. Common sense, some online calculators, and knowing what's going on around your house will take you a long way.

Here are a few things I've learned from planners I've talked with for 20 years:

• Even your mailing address at the top of the form may flag some tax savings. You may qualify for additional tax deductions if you moved because of your job. And if you sold your old house, you may need to plan how best to use one-time shot income from the profits.

• Gross income on line 7 is one of the easiest numbers to calculate and one of the most important to look at. At a minimum, you need to be sure your living expenses are lower or that you can make them so. Gross income also is a good beginning to gauge how much retirement income you need.
  

• Look at your sources of income too, which are all the numbers you fill in between about lines 8 and 22. If you are relatively young and saving for a distant retirement, ask yourself if too much money from interest and dividends means you are too conservatively invested to hit long term goals. Check out any capital gains or losses you report, either on line 13 or a Schedule D. They may indicate a need to rebalance or streamline your investments if the numbers surprised you.

• Beware of big mortgage deductions. Getting potentially more money back is nice, but not if you overextended to get there.
  

• Look at any IRA or retirement plan withdrawals you report on lines 15 or 16. If those are bigger than you planned or you paid penalties on any of the money, fixing that needs attention immediately.