Renting out your Florida condo can be a good way to offset some of your costs. But be wary when it comes to writing off expenses, experts warn.

Don't expect to rent out it out for a month or two during the winter and deduct a year's worth of interest and other expenses, for instance. The CRA expects to see such expenses be pro-rated, allowing you to deduct them only for those months when income was actually being earned.

If you've advertised that the property is available for rent but it still remains empty, you may be able to write off the expenses for this open time period. The time spent trying to find a tenant may be considered a deductible expense,providing you can document your efforts.

Forget about deducting the cost of your flight down there, however. And the same rules apply if you're driving.

When it comes to holidays, who you go with can be just as important as where you go and how much you're willing to spend. 

Assuming you're not simply stuck with the kids during March break, consider your travel companion carefully, as the wrong choice can mean the difference between a great trip and a disaster.

Consider taking a test run first. Overnight trips or even a weekend outing may help you both get a good idea about your compatibility.

One pair of women knew each other from the gym, but had never spent a lot of time together. Turns out one was an unstoppable chatterbox who yakked incessantly about anything and everything.

"I will never, ever travel with her again," her disgruntled partner fumed, "and I don't know how I'm going to make it through the next five days without strangling her."

The 2012 MPAC Assessment is currently in the mail and Ontario property owners who own cottages, ski chalets and vacation homes need to be on the look out, warns Mara Sofferin, VP at CottageCountry, a popular Canadian online vacation rental site.  

With some 17,000 vacation properties available, the site is one Canada's largest source for cottage and vacation rentals, a key source of income for many vacation property owners, particularly those feeling a bit cash-strapped.

In such cases, rental revenue can help cover costs like mortgage, maintenance and increased property tax payments, or simply be a source of supplemental income.

"When the assessment arrives, likely so will the news of much higher annual property taxes, adding another expense to the already costly endeavor of owning a vacation property," she maintains. 

The US housing crunch has hit vacation timeshares hard. Sales have fallen, expenses have risen, and older developments have aged ungracefully — prompting many long-time owners to bail for just pennies on the dollar.

It's clearly a buyer's market. You can find stacks of free and nearly free timeshares are listed at SellMyTimeShareNow or Timeshare Resale Vacations.

Most owners just want to get out from under the maintenance fees, but many are discovering that it may be even harder to sell a time-share than it is a single-family house in Detroit, according to Reuters.