Newbie Budget-$100

Office Suite-Free (Open Office-comparable to & compatible with MS Office)
On line Calendar-Free (Brown Bear-comparable to iCal)
On line Note/List Organizer-Free (Backpack-like no other)
On line Contact Management-Free (BusinessITonline-don't lose contacts ever)
Website,URL, e Mail-Free (MS Office Live-easy website design tools)
On line Collaboration-Free (Officezilla-Store files & allow clients to access)
e Mail Invoicing-Free (Paypal-fee charged per transaction;pass cost to client)
Printing Service-Free (Kinkos-send to Kinkos near client;pass cost to client; don't print & mail)
Fax Number-Free (FaxDigits-unlimited free incoming faxes)
Faxing-Free (Faxzero-send six pages free daily)
Checking Account-Free (INGDirect-get free overdraft protection)
Start-up Business Plan Template-Free (Score-every business needs a plan)
Voice mail to e Mail-Free (Visual Voice mail-get messages on PC)
PDF Creator-Free (CutePDF-installs as printer driver;just “print to CutePDF”)
Accounting Software-Free (MS Accounting 2007-integrates with PayPal invoicing)


Newbie Budget Remaining to date-$100



My list is no way inclusive of all of the software & services that are available for Free. The following are sources for more information on what is available for Free: Open source Wiki, Freebyte, MoneySavingExpert, & SBA.

WOW you've done some research! Great job, I'll defiantly be looking into some of these!

Thanks for the info!

I am not sure if it has been posted before but the website where VA forms are being sold has a free software page which is pretty thorough.

I love paypal.. Its fast easy and clients love it!!

__________________
Winslow Girl Virtual Assistant
www.winslowgirlva.com
Taking Virtual Assistance to the Next Level

Just want to say I signed up for Fax digits today. I immediately sent myself a fax. Before I got back to my seat I had already received the email that my fax was in. They at no time asked for any credit card information for me so it is definatley free. Thanks for the suggestion, I am a huge fan of free.
So far I love open office. I have been able to download word attachements with no problem. I have none of the formatting/conversion issues that I had with word perfect.
I am also working on my free website from Microsoft Office Live and am so far very happy. I cannot afford to pay a ton to have a website designed and I am only in the beginners HTML tutorial and believe I am far from being able to design a professional website on my own. So for me this is another great cost effective option.

Without this forum I would have never known about any of these options so thanks. Soon I will be able to start planning my marketing strategies.

Thanks again

I downloaded the PDF converter. Thank you for that link! I was soooo close to paying an arm and a leg to Adobe for their version (I didn't realize there was a freebie...phew...lol)

Wow! These are great! I am printing this off and will be doing some homework for sure! Also, what I recently found out was that LogMeIn has a free version. This is great if you need to access your client's computer or even your own from a different location!

__________________
Doreen R. Patrick, MVA, ACS, CIVA
www.virtualbusinesspartners.net

Yup, this a great thread. I am also looking into skype. I'm not yet clear on the specifics or if it will benefit me yet. We will see.

Skype, at least for me, has been a lifeline - it costs me 1/100th to talk to clients in the States (not to mention family).

With that said - you can also buy up to ten incoming phone numbers for a Skype account and it comes with free voicemail. When we get back I'm going to set up a sep. line *just* for business calls - two main reasons for this being when I'm in-office my computer, and relatively, my business phone are on, when I'm out of office it's off and I don't have to worry about after hours calls.

And each incoming number costs less than a 'real' landline per month.

Oh, and you can forward your incoming calls to another phone line (cel or land) so if you're out of office but still on the clock you can forward to your cel or whatever...cheap and convenient!