Zero Business Expenses...almost

The following suggestions will save you thousands on business expenses. Have fun saving money!

Operating System

Instead of...Windows - $$

You can use...Ubuntu - free

You can use...Debian - free

You can use...Suse - free

You can use...Fedora - free

Office Productivity

Instead of...MS Office - $$

You can use...OpenOffice - free

You can use...Google Docs and Spreadsheets - free

You can use...AbiWord - free

Instead of...Adobe Photoshop - $$

You can use...Gimp - free

Instead of...Microsoft Money, Quicken, and other accounting software - $$

You can use...Gnucash - free

Instead of...Crystal Reports - $$

You can use...Datavision - free

Instead of...Cognos Business Intelligence - $$$

You can use...Pentaho - free

Instead of...buying a fax machine - $$

You can use...Faxzero - free

Stationery

Instead of stickynotes...$

You can use...Stikkit

Instead of envelopes...$

You can use...bank deposit envelopes - free

Instead of agendas...$

You can use...Google Calender - free

You can use...30 boxes - free

Instead of printing brochures...$$

You can use...PDF - free

Instead of sending brochures...

You can use...Gmail - free

Instead of buying invoices...$

You can use and send...Blinksale - free

Instead of printing invitations...$$

You can use...Evite - free

Instead of sending invitations...$$

You can use...Evite - free

Telephony

Instead of...Ma Bell - $$->$$$

You can use...Grand Central - free

You can use...Private Phone - free

You can use...Skype - free

You can use...Gizmo Project - free

You can use...Yahoo - free

Instead of...buying your employees cell phones and racking up huge air time - $$$

You can use...SMC Skype Phone - $

Office Space

Instead of...renting - $$$$

You can use...work from home - free

You can use...work from a Starbucks or other wi-fi hotspot - free

You can use...Rentometer if you insist on renting to make sure you're not being ripped off - free

Instead of...renting subsidiary locations in different cities - $$$$

You can use...get as many telephone numbers in key cities to give you a virtual presence using Grandcentral or Privatephone, both - free

Web Hosting

Instead of...hosting your site - $$

You can use...Google Pages for unlimited storage and data transfer, just mask forward your domain to Google Pages - free

You can use...Flickr to hotlink photos from so you don't have to pay hosting - free

Networking

Instead of...hiring a Network Administrator - $$$$

You can use...Hamachi - free

Instead of...using Microsoft 2003 - $$

You can use...Hamachi - free

Instead of...hiring tech support - $$$$

You can use...Fixya - free

Instead of hiring an external monitoring service to make sure your website is up and running - $$

You can use...Pingdom - free

Finance

Instead of...borrowing money at high bank interest rates - $$$

You can use...Prosper - free

Hotels

Instead of...3-5 Star Hotels - $$

You can use...craigslist short term - $

You can use...Couch Surfing - free

Advertising and Design...

Instead of...TV ads - $$$$

You can use...Youtube - free

Instead of...Print or Web ads - $$$

You can use...Digg - free

You can use...Delicious - free

You can use...Reddit - free

You can use...Newsvine - free

You can use...Metafilter - free

You can use...Tailrank - free

You can use...Slashdot - free

You can use...Boingboing - free

You can use...Nowpublic - free

You can use...Clipmarks - free

You can use...DZone - free

Instead of buying stock photos...$$$

You can use...Stock Xchange - free

You can use...Yotophoto - free

Instead of buying fonts...$

You can use...Da Font - free

Instead of paying someone to design your business cards...$$

You can use...Creative Bits - free

You can use...Flickr - free

You can use...Businesscardland - free

Instead of buying newspapers and magazines - $

You can use Google News with keyword search emailed to you - free

You can use an RSS feed like the one from Google Reader or Windows Vista - free

Instead of subscribing to a contact marketing service - $$

You can use...Monster, Dice.com, etc - $$$

You can use...craigslist - free

You can use...Jobitems - free

Instead of paying for an extra telephone number for people to call - $$

You can use...craigsnumber temporary telephone numbers - free

Price Guide

$ - tens of dollars

$$ - hundreds of dollars

$$$ - thousands of dollars

$$$$ - tens of thousands of dollars

Conclusion

Your average small to medium-sized office has 10 employees. By going with free operating systems, productivity software, and net telephony, you can literally cut your overhead expenses by tens of thousands. Imagine the savings if you have a hundred employees.

Updated May 31, 2007