If you’re a personal finance information junkie, you’re very likely already familiar with Wise Bread, one of the Web’s top consumer tips sites in the arena of money matters (its logo is a piggybank, which might spark your memory).

And if you’re not familiar with the blog, or you don’t consider yourself a money-tips junkie but you do like to save money when you can, you should get familiar with it, quick-like.

Wise Bread is published by a group of bloggers around the mission of providing “readers with folksy and relatable advice on how to manage and spend their money.”

And they’re serious — I got hooked on this site when it gave a tip for legally and legitimately scoring unlimited free movie rentals — indefinitely — that saved my family 20 bucks, plus, a month on our instant gratification trips to the movie store, with virtually zero effort. (I won’t give the tip here — if you want to know, go check out the site!)

The Wise Bread bloggers’ book, “10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget,” delivers on the same promise as the website’s mission — big-time — just in a different format!

And it is super-usable. First off, the book literally indoctrinates the reader with a much-needed message for today’s recession-pinched household budgets: Being smart with your money, managing your money and saving your money does not equate to scrimping on life.

The book is opened up with the authors’ declaration to this effect: “We believe the key to financial wellness isn’t a ramen-eating, vacation-skipping, fun-deprived life.”

This is a message that runs completely counter to the unsustainable (for many) and un-fun (for all) “Don’t buy that!” model espoused by some financial gurus.

To facilitate its “live large while spending little” message, Wise Bread eschews the budget tips we’ve all heard a million times for strategies that fall into the category they call “financial ingenuity” — creative, doable do’s and don’ts that are rendered highly feasible by the fact that they are largely tools to be used in the course of purchases and decisions we all make on a daily basis anyway.

That is, the book doesn’t ask you to go way out of your way to find ways to save; rather, it equips you with questions to ask, label items to look for and details to give when you’re buying wine at the store or the restaurant to get a great wine at a great price (as well as several uses for inexpensive wine — in case you prefer to buy cheap, not-necessarily-great wine for your home kitchen).

Accordingly, the book focuses on providing lots of lists with money-saving and good-living advice that falls into two large buckets: frugal living and personal finance.

The frugal living section includes tips around food, entertainment, health and education/self-improvement, while the personal finance piece tackles topics including planning and budgeting, credit cards and debt, investing, housing, and making money in your career or business.

The section on frugal living is actually the most entertaining and usable compendium of tips I may ever have read — the list topics are so fully relatable that it actually reads like the best list of tips in your favorite magazine, to the 100th power. You can skim/read it straight through, and then still keep it handy for reference.

Examples include “7 Ways to Brown-Bag it With Style”; “10 Ways to Create a Gourmet Kitchen on a Shoestring”, “10 Ways to Fake it Till You Make It” (how to look stylish, especially in business contexts, on a very low budget), and “10 Frugal Ways to Care for Your Allergies” — universal issues, usable tips.

My favorite? “8 Endurance Principles for Staying the Frugal Course” — in two pages, this list troubleshot and solved some of the most critical glitches I’ve encountered in my own forays into frugality — seven of which I’d never seen covered in another book. (And, as you might imagine, I read a lot of finance books.)

Amazing.

The last half of the book, which is devoted to personal finance, is slightly less sexy in subject matter, but not in the universality or usability of the advice it provides. The tips in this section include super-simple, yet sound, budget principles (including a no-tears guide for sticking to one!), easy ways to find cash to give to charity, and even “9 Signs It’s Time to Fire Your Financial Planner.”

With its whole-life focus, “10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget” is as much about living well as it is about saving money. I’d strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to live the good life while being smart about their personal finances.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of “The Savvy Woman’s Homebuying Handbook” and “Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions.” Tara is also the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com. Ask her a real estate question online or visit her website, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

DEAR CYNDI: When you buy a bank-owned property, it is usually an as-is sale. Banks are interested in cutting their losses by getting these foreclosed properties off of their books. But there are exceptions, depending on the kinds of defects involved.

In some cases, buyers or their agents are able to negotiate for repairs, but these instances are rare. In the case of an active plumbing leak, you’ve got a fair chance, but don’t delay on this because prolonged leakage can cause further problems, such as mold. Holes in the drywall are cosmetic defects, unlikely to be considered by the bank.

The former owner was apparently not very responsible or ethical, considering the physical damage to the property and failure to leave fixtures as promised. But all of that is history and not worth pursuing. Wall damage is easily patched, and you’ll probably enjoy new fixtures in place of the old ones that were taken.

Your decision now is whether to buy a home that needs some repairs, or to cancel the sale. If the purchase price is good, and the cost of repairs is not too high, this may still be a good deal. To gain some perspective on this, get some quotes for physical repairs and replacement of fixtures. And above all, be sure to hire an experienced home inspector for a more complete list of defects.

DEAR BARRY: When I bought my house, the home inspector found no problems with the roof. But last winter the roof started leaking in several places. So I went into the attic and found buckets under several of the leaks. Two of the buckets were filled and overflowing. Shouldn’t my home inspector have said something about this? –Cheryl

DEAR CHERYL: If your home inspector went into the attic, something should have been said about the buckets. There is only one reason to install buckets in an attic, and this should be obvious to every professional home inspector. When pails, wash tubs, old coffee cans or buckets are seen in an attic, past or current leakage is evident, and an extra careful evaluation of the roof is in order.

If the roofing material looks new, the buckets are probably left over from previous leaks. If the roofing does not appear new, further evaluation by a licensed roofing contractor is in order.

If your home inspector inspected the attic and said nothing about the buckets, he was professionally negligent. If he didn’t inspect the attic, he was either professionally negligent or inconveniently corpulent. Either way, he wasn’t doing his job.

To write to Barry Stone, please visit him on the Web at www.housedetective.com.

When my children eventually sell this house, will they still be subject to capital gains or losses as the case may be? –Frank

DEAR FRANK: That’s an excellent question and a very good proposal. But you have to be careful how you structure the sale.

If you and your wife have owned and lived in the house for at least two years out of the five years before the sale, and if you file a joint income tax return, you can exclude up to $500,000 of any profit you will make on the sale. If you file a separate tax return (or are a single taxpayer), then the exclusion is limited to $250,000.

But there’s a catch when dealing with family members. You cannot exclude gain from the sale of a remainder interest in your home to a related person, which is defined as brothers, sisters, children and grandchildren.

What’s a remainder interest? Technically, it means that someone has a future interest in an asset. For example, you execute a deed to your property, giving yourself a life estate, and on your death the house goes to a charity (or to your children). The charity (or your children) would have a future, or remainder, interest in your property.

So, if you were to do the example above, you would not be able to claim the exclusion of gain.

But that’s not what you are doing. You are selling your house outright to your children, presumably for full market value less any real estate commission you would normally pay if this were a sale to a stranger.

So, you can claim the exclusion of gain. However, I would have your attorney prepare a lease, whereby you and your wife would be tenants of your children. The terms of the lease are negotiable, and I see no reason why your plan would not work.

When your children sell the property, unless they have lived in it after your death, they would have to pay capital gains tax on their profit. If they buy it for $400,000, and many years later sell it for $600,000, their gain is $200,000 (excluding real estate commissions and other closing costs), and will have to pay the tax.

Although I suspect that the capital gains tax will be increased in the next few years; currently it is 15 percent. So in my example, your children would have to pay the Internal Revenue Service $30,000.

DEAR BENNY: I am a divorced woman who owns a home and have been living for the past two years with my boyfriend with whom I have a solid relationship. (Nevertheless, I do not care to marry again.) He pays the mortgage and future property taxes. I have considered including him in the deed so he can benefit from the property tax and mortgage interest deductions. I am unemployed and my future career plans are not grandiose.

I’d like to know if I should add my boyfriend to the deed and draw a legal contract in which it is stipulated that I would receive all proceeds upon the sale of the house except for the cost of repairs he has made to the home. He would, in turn, benefit from the tax deductions.

I would greatly appreciate if you could give me some advice as to this plan. –J.P.

DEAR J.P.: Good suggestion but it’s not that easy. Do you really want to add him to title on your house? Even with the written agreement you suggest, you run the risk that he could challenge the validity of that document and claim that he has an interest and is entitled to his share of the proceeds.

If, however, you still want to pursue this, and your boyfriend is added to the title, he should be able to deduct some of the real estate taxes that he pays.

However, should you (or he) ever be audited by the IRS, the agency may question why he is deducting all of the real estate tax when he does not own all of the property. For example, if he will own 50 percent of the house, the IRS may take the position that he can deduct only half of the taxes he pays.

As for the mortgage interest deduction, there are problems — especially because he is not legally obligated under the loan documents.

There are, however, cases that allow a non-owner to deduct the interest he or she pays. First, we must look to the regulations that have been promulgated by the IRS.

Regulation 1.163-1(b) reads as follows: “Interest paid by the taxpayer on a mortgage upon real estate of which he is the legal or equitable owner, even though the taxpayer is not directly liable upon the bond or note secured by such mortgage, may be deducted as interest on his indebtedness.”

In August 2003, the U.S. Tax Court addressed this situation and denied the interest deduction. The petitioner bought a house for his mother and although he was not on the title nor was the mortgage loan in his name, he made the monthly loan payments.

He argued to the court that he was obligated to repay his mother and “that his failure to repay would result, upon his mother’s death, in a corresponding reduction in his testamentary share of his mother’s estate.”

The tax court rejected this argument. Based on the facts, the court determined that the petitioner was neither “directly liable on the note securing the mortgage on his mother’s house, nor (was) he a legal or equitable owner of the property.” (Montoya v. IRS, decided Aug. 5, 2003.)

What exactly is required to be an “equitable owner”? Our legal dictionary defines this as ownership by one who does not have legal title. For example, if you are under contract to buy a house, you have “equitable title” — i.e., an interest in the property.

Obviously, each case has to be decided on the specific facts presented to the court. In the Montoya case, the tax court determined that the son just did not have enough evidence to prove that he had some kind of ownership in his mother’s property.

Several years earlier, this same court did allow a couple to deduct the mortgage interest even though they were not on title to the property. In Uslu v. IRS, the following facts were presented to the court.

Uslu had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy relief and was not eligible to obtain a mortgage loan. His brother bought the house in which the only occupants were Uslu and his wife.

The loan was in the brother’s name only, but Uslu made all of the mortgage payments. He also made all of the repairs and improvements to the property. The brother signed a quitclaim deed conveying the property to Uslu, although this deed was never recorded on the land records.

The tax court found that Uslu’s mortgage payments “constituted payments on an indebtedness” and thus could be deducted for income tax purposes.

According to the court: “The court is satisfied, from all of the evidence presented, that petitioners (Uslu) have continuously treated the … property as if they were the owners, and that they exclusively held the benefits and burdens of ownership thereof.

“On this record, the court holds that petitioners established equitable and beneficial ownership of the (property), and they were liable to (the brother) in respect of the mortgage indebtedness.”

How do you meet the burden? Here are some suggestions:

1. Your boyfriend must continuously live in the property. To prove this, his driver’s license, voter registration and utility bills should be in his name at the property address.

2. You and your friend should enter into a written agreement, spelling out that he is fully obligated to make the mortgage payments on a timely basis, and that you reserve the right to evict him should he go into default; the agreement should specifically state that you recognize that your friend has an equitable interest in the property.

3. Your friend must be responsible for all maintenance and upkeep of the property.

4. You should prepare and sign a quitclaim deed, in recordable form, conveying a portion of the property to your boyfriend. This will not be recorded, but will be further evidence of your decision that this property is, in reality if not legally, partially owned by your friend.

There obviously are no guarantees, but if you follow the guidelines spelled out in the Uslu case, you have a chance of prevailing should the IRS challenge those deductions. And you may be able to do this without putting him on title.

Benny L. Kass is a practicing attorney in Washington, D.C., and Maryland. No legal relationship is created by this column. Questions for this column can be submitted to benny@inman.com.

From what I gathered in the article and the research I gathered in fewer than six degrees of clicks outward from it, social tenants are those who live in government-funded or assisted housing in the U.K. — the equivalent of residents in American housing projects.

So, I read on about the British government’s new “housing swap scheme,” or plan, in which these social tenants will be allowed to register as interested in moving to another type of social housing, or even to another area, and will be allowed to simply trade homes with other social tenants.

Many tenants and even one of the country’s largest private providers of social housing applauded this new plan, which the government has been pressured to create for many moons, apparently. The private housing provider had, in fact, already implemented its own internal version of the program, to resounding success.

Apparently, British social tenants have always been required to stay put in order to retain their government housing benefits. This has caused some households to stay in a long-blighted area, in cities with few employment prospects, or even in homes that no longer fit their families’ needs — in the vein of longtime Manhattanites clinging to $900 rent-controlled apartments.

The government had caved to the rationale that the home-swap program would encourage, rather than discourage, social tenants to move in order to find work, after which they could be transitioned into the private housing market. But one woman who lived in one of the homes able to be swapped by its corporate owner raved about the experience.

The woman told how her oldest children had grown up and left home, and she was still stuck in a too-large place in a destitute area, far away from her younger children’s school. She swapped for a smaller home with a young mother just starting to raise her family, for whom the move would put her closer to family.

More importantly, though, the move was a clean slate. She’d lived in the same town for nearly 40 years, had been laid off from her job and had experienced an acute episode of agoraphobia.

“Sometimes you need a new start and this gave me a chance to do that. It was an opportunity to make a change.” She elaborated, “Once in social housing you feel like you are going to be stuck where you are forever. What I didn’t realize was there is an opportunity to make a change.”

And apparently, the move worked. “Since we’ve moved my health has improved immeasurably and I’m actively looking for a job,” the mother reported.

Here in the U.S., we so often assume that housing’s interaction with socioeconomic mobility is centered around whether or when one can afford to move from renter to buyer. With the recent recession, though, the popular understanding of that calculus became infinitely more nuanced and complicated.

Many who can afford to buy homes are now electing to rent — some until the price is right, others indefinitely. Additionally, we’ve seen that homeownership without equity, without income or with an unsustainable mortgage (balance or payments) can be more economically burdensome than beneficial. For this reason, it’s increasingly crystal clear that until the job market recovers, the real estate market will languish.

The idea that the simple location of a rented home — even a government-subsidized home! — can so greatly impact your life and your chances of thriving is profound. Maybe it’s bigger than that, though.

Maybe it’s simply the ability to exercise some level of control over where and in what sort of home you live that these folks find so liberating and powerful, especially when you’d been operating under the impression you were trapped in your status quo.

The private housing company that owns much of Britain’s public housing and had pioneered the swap system had an interesting perspective on the subject of housing and its role in its residents’ lives, from which we might be able to borrow some insights.

Its corporate credo is tailored around the mission to help people max out their “life chances,” German sociologist Max Weber’s concept of the opportunities — the chances — that any given person has to improve the quality of their life.

Next week, more on how the life chances model rationally fits into a lifestyle-enhancing, real estate decision-making model, and the irrational efforts at maximizing life chances that occur so frequently when we Americans buy, sell and finance our homes.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of “The Savvy Woman’s Homebuying Handbook” and “Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions.” Tara is also the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com. Ask her a real estate question online or visit her website, www.rethinkrealestate.com.