Are Your Finances Organized?

Mine are!

Yes they are. I bought one of those big plastic filing boxes from Staples along with some multi colored folders and dividers and got my finances organized..at least to some extent.

The sections are:

Student Loans
Grad School
Tax Returns
Debt Snowball
Timeshare
Household
Credit Cards
Checking/Savings
Retirement
Car Accounts

Each account has a file folder within its corresponding divider.

For example with the student loan section there are two folders, one for my AES Loans and one for my Direct Student Loan.

Under Car Accounts I have two folders, one for car payment and the other for car insurance.

Under credit cards I have folders for every credit card I own.

What do I do with these folders... well... I every time I get a statement or some type of communication from the company I put it right in its corresponding folder. If it is a bill the first thing I do is set up a date for automatic bill pay and then file the bill in its folder. Bill will be automatically paid and I will have the bill statement that told me what I owed. No worries!!!

This system works for me. If they is ever a fire in my house one could probably see me running out the house with that big plastic box and my laptop. Everything of importance is in there.

IRS needs to see my 2006 tax return. No worries! I will simply pull that out its folder and fax it to them.

Accountant needs to see settlement sheet for the house. No worries it has its own folder.

Don't remember the balance of my car loan. No worries! I just go to said folder, pull out the last statement and look at it.

When accounts are paid off the pay off letter will go into the debt snowball folder so I can pull it out and read it any time I feel like it.

Pretty simple huh??? I know that through the years this system may be tweaked a little bit but at least its a start, and for me I know where everything is.

If you don't have a system of organizing your accounts you need to get one now!

until next time, think prosperous thoughts

YBP