How To Spring Clean Your Finances

SPRING CLEAN YOUR FINANCES Spring cleaning: time to dust off those cobwebs, flip over your mattress, and organize your finances. Paperless statements are becoming the new normal, but if you haven't made the switch yet or you're unsure which physical documents to keep, here are some helpful guidelines to getting your fiscal house in order. WHY SPRING CLEANING IS NECESSARY 89% 50% Yet less than 50% of Americans can find a document with a little looking of Americans think their financial paper-work is extremely to fairly organized 16% 40% lost money or incurred charges because of poorly organized paperwork And just 40% can find a document ata moment's notice SORT ALL YOUR PAPERS INTO 6 CATEGORIES: FOREVER DOCUMENTS MONTHLY STATEMENTS TAX DOCUMENTS Marrlage llcense/ldivorce decree Life Insurance policles Bank records Tax returns Pay stubs W2s Birth certificates BIlls & utilitles 1099s WIlls POLICY DOCUMENTS PRODUCT-RELATED INVESTMENT STATEMENTS Insurance Penslon updates 401k statements Manuals Car title Warrantees Home deed Brokerage & fund statements GO PAPERLESS SCAN all your forever documents CLOUD SERVICE FLASH DRIVE Store the m in a secure offsite facility like a cloud service or on a flash drive in a safe deposit box If you haven't already, switch to managing your bank statements, taxes, car insurance, and bills electronically START SHREDDING DESTROY THE FOLLOWING: Tax records over 7 years old Pay stubs and bank statements over 1 year old Credit card statements over 45 days old INEVERII shred your forever documents! File each of your 6 categories in separate folders inside of an easily accessed filing cabinet, binder, or drawer 2014 Name each folder with Sort all paperwork in each folder newest to oldest broad categories and tax year Routinely purge the documents past the shredding threshold about every 6 months or so Don't get lost in a mess of paperwork this spring – DITCH THE CLUTTER ONCE AND FOR ALL. SOURCES: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2010/03/conquer-the-paper-piles/index.htm http://www.oprah.com/money/Suze-Omans-Spring-Cleaning-Overhaul-Your-Files-and-Finances_1/2 http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2013/ Jun/Going-paperless.htm http://www.forbes.com/sites/learnvest/2013/03/07/spring-clean-your-finances-with-these-5-pro-tips/ http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/01/pf/bank-accounts.moneymag/ mint.com