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Monday, January 31, 2011

ORGANIZE YOUR FINANCES

Organizing your financial information is a crucial part of every household. Unfortunately it’s one thing that most people just don’t do.

It’s time consuming. It takes a lot of thought. It’s very personal and emotional. It’s a reality check that most people don’t want to think about.

But you can’t just leave your finances to chance. Well, at least you shouldn’t. Running a household is not much different than running a business.

Having an organized system in place helps things run smoothly.

Let’s start with your space. You need to pick a place that is going to be command central. Whether you have an office in your home, a desk in a corner or the kitchen table… it doesn’t matter. Just pick a place and make that your command center.

If you don’t have a separate office space you still need to have files. You can have a file cabinet or a file drawer or a file basket….it doesn’t matter as long as you have files for all of our finances (bills, receipts, tax related information…).

You need to come up with a system and a plan that works for you. Decide what that is and stick to it. It could be that you set aside a certain day each week to pay your bills and go through your finances or an hour a week or every other week. Whatever works for you ….that you will stick with. That’s what’s important.

Some simple tips for dealing with bills:

  • Go through your mail each day and put all of your bills in one spot (a basket, a folder…).
  • Record the date due on the outside of the envelope when the bill arrives.
  • On the day that you decide is finance day, go through your bills and pay each one.
  • You can pay your bills by: Check Pay Online Automatic payments
  • Record your payments (in a check register, a spreadsheet, accounting software….).
  • Decide when the payments will be sent out. You can put the “mail on” date on the envelope in pencil. Put a stamp on it and mail it.
  • File copies of the bill with payment info.
By coming up with a system that works for you there will be less of a chance of missing a payment and getting hit with late fees. Whatever system you decide to use, the important part is that you have a system and you stick with it.

Organizational Consulting Services

http://www.organizationalconsultingservices.com/

1 comment:

  1. Certainly. A huge part of this is essentially geography; of mapping out the flow of activity in a space to make data generation and analysis more effective. The other is strategy, and that is where professional bookkeeping services comes in, because two heads are always better than one.

    Venita @ A Reliable Bookkeeping Services

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