I can remember a time not so long ago, that I would only buy a few dollars worth of gas at a time, because the price was likely to go down in a few days and it would be foolish to fill my tank with more expensive gasoline now rather than wait for a price drop.

Well, prices are headed up and up and, it seems, up. The price of a gallon of regular is up an average of 21 cents and prices are expected to increase through March.

Rising gas prices may make us groan at the pump as we watch the numbers tick off but because the increase happens over a period of time, we may not immediately notice the impact they have on our budget.

But that is the way inflation and rising prices work. Last year’s budget may not reflect your actual expenditures this year. Because we tend to include increases in income - probably because it makes us feel better about spending - and less likely to include small increases that over time take more and more of that income, our budgets can be inaccurate if not kept up to date.

Take time out, say every three months, to go over your projected expenditures and bills and adjust your budget where necessary. Only by having an accurate financial picture today can you plan and save for your future.

You received an email that appears to come from a legitimate business offering to supply a free credit report to help you monitor and prevent identity theft. Don’t be fooled.

The email could very well be one of many scam emails circulating over the last two years. The recipient is directed to a site to fill out an application form.

The application form contains all the basic information you might expect to provide in order to request a credit report. The problem is that these sites are run by scammers.

The scammers now have everything they want. Instead of protecting yourself against identity theft you have just provided the scammers with all the information they need to make you a victim of it. They can now open accounts, get credit cards in your name and ruin your credit.

Everyone is entitled to one free credit report per year. According to the FTC, the only website authorized for this purpose is www.annualcreditreport.com.

If you’re planning on remodeling your house to raise its market value, you’re less likely to recoup the cost of the improvements than you were a few years ago.

The reason is basically that the cost for making home improvements has risen faster than the degree to which those improvements raise the resale value of a home.

Before you launch into a remodeling project at your home, read the advice at Remodeling Online. They have regional maps and data with charts detailing cost vs. value of specific remodeling projects for various regions of the country.

For instance, in Massachusetts you can expect to recoup 79% of the cost of a deck addition but in Oregon you will recoup 91.1% of the project’s cost.

Early returns received by the IRS indicate many taxpayers are making mistakes when requesting the telephone tax refund. The telephone tax was institued in 1898 as a “luxury tax” but was recently ruled to be unconstitutional. Taxpayers are entitled to a refund equalling three years of actual Telephone Excise Tax paid or may claim the standard amount on the IRS forms.

Early mistakes found on a sample of 2006 returns filed during January include:

* Filling out the Form 1040EZ-T, Request for Refund of Federal Telephone Excise Tax, incorrectly by failing to show a refund amount on Line 1a. Designed exclusively for requesting the telephone-tax refund, this simple form is for people who don’t need to file a regular income-tax return. Filing an incomplete form typically delays a refund and often leads to follow-up correspondence with the IRS. More than 10 million low-income people, many of them senior citizens, are expected to file this form.

* Failing to request the telephone tax refund on a regular federal income-tax return in situations where the taxpayer appears to qualify. More than one-third of early filers did not request the telephone tax refund. This includes filers on Forms 1040, 1040A, 1040EZ, 1040NR and 1040NR-EZ. About 136 million individuals and couples are expected to file one of these forms, and most will, likely, qualify for the telephone-tax refund. Anyone who files one of these forms cannot file Form 1040EZ-T.

* Filing duplicate requests. Usually, this involves filing both Form 1040EZ-T and a regular income-tax return. Anyone who files a regular return cannot file Form 1040EZ-T. Doing so will delay any refund for months and result in a phone call or letter from the IRS.

* Requesting a refund that appears to be based on the entire amount of the taxpayer’s phone bills, rather than just the three-percent tax on long-distance and bundled service.

* Requesting a refund in the thousands of dollars, suggesting that the taxpayer paid more for telephone service than they received in income.

The IRS is investigating potential abuses among early filers who requested large and apparently improper amounts for the telephone tax refund. They will take prompt action against taxpayers who request improper refund amounts and the return preparers who help them.

For help in filing for the telephone tax refund, see the IRS website.