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Do you dredge handling your financial paperwork?
Dealing with your barrage of bills, receipts, and statements can be overwhelming.
Don’t get too discouraged.
Paper clutter may be holding you back .
But with three simple steps . . .
You can get and stay financially organized.
Discover how in today’s post.
1. Go through information regularly.
To stay on top of things, pick and commit to a consistent time to process your financial information. I recommend choosing one day a week, or at most, every other week. More time than that and you risk overwhelm, confusion and missing due dates.
Regular maintenance allows you to pay your bills on time and gives you a dedicated time to check your statements. These simple tasks are critical to maintaining and improving your credit scores, preventing you from being blind sighted by unexpected costs and keeping your information up-to-date.
2. Simplify your paper and systems.
Pay online
Unless you’re meticulous with your online statements and bills, I recommend receiving all your bills and statements in good ole fashioned paper form. Online bills and statements tend to get lost in your inbox and require individual passwords to get access to them, which can deter action.
However, setting up all your bills for online payment can save you a lot of time and frustration. Be sure to set up payment through your bank so you can pay all your bills from one place, at one time. Having to go to separate websites to handle payments is a time and energy waster.
Minimize accounts and cards
Consolidate accounts in separate banks into one institution. Also, close barely used accounts to keep banking streamlined. Lastly, reduce, (that means cancel), the number of credit cards you have. The fewer accounts and cards you have, the easier they are to keep track of. On a related note, shred or toss credit card offers immediately, before your temptation kicks in and you sign up for another one.
3. Have one place for everything.
Keeping track of your finances starts with keeping track of all your information. As papers and financial documents come in, it’s critical to keep them all in one place. This allows for easy access and efficient handling of them. Have a bin, filer or basket where you keep all your bills and statements until it’s time to deal with them. Whatever you choose to use, use it only for finances and be sure to put all your documents there.
If you need to get organized or want to give a big hint to a friend, share this on social media. it’s the right thing to do.
Mridu Parikh is an award-winning Organization Life Coach, Simplicity Expert, sought-after speaker, wife, and mother of 2. Many people turn to her for solid advice on her organizational methods. You can learn more about her services and website at LifeisOrganized.com.