Spring cleaning for your files
Now that your taxes are hopefully filed, and March is being, well March - freezing one day, 75 the next - you should carve out half an hour to go through your papers and perform a spring cleaning!
Speaking of those taxes: you need to keep your records for 7 years but that’s why it’s important to digitize, I make all my charitable donations online so I put the emails in a folder in my inbox (bonus points for creating a donation filter!) I also scan and securely submit both my tax documents and my clients’ so those are backed up and I don’t need boxes of records! If you haven’t done this, no time like the present to start. Keep the papers you already have, and as each year passes you can throw out an older set.
Have a filing system. Once you open the mail and pay any bills you still get that way, mark them paid with the date and file them away! Have an inbox on your desk and try and go through it once a week.
Go through your credit cards, a lot of them now show you subscriptions/recurring payments, clean these out!
And it’s not just physical clutter: go through your iphone appstore, cancel subscriptions! If you find you miss them you can always sign back up. Most will continue letting you use the app for the rest of your payment period, but turn off autorenew!
Stop trying to remember everything! Put bills on autopay or add them to your calendar or set reminders. insurance etc. that are quarterly or yearly so you don't forget. A lot of townships have email reminders you can sign up for to get a note before property or water bills are due.
Read through your estate documents. If they need updating, schedule an appointment with your estate planning attorney. (yes I am assuming you already have documents, because you should!)
Go over your IRAs, retirement accounts, etc. and update any beneficiaries that need updating. Check if charitable beneficiaries are still in existence and if their names and addresses are correct.
Freeze your credit! Free and easy to lift in the app or on the website. Go to all three credit bureaus: transunion, equifax, and experian, and sign up for a free credit freeze. You only need to lift it when opening a card, financing a phone, or a car and it takes a few minutes to lift. Most allow you to pause for a few days and will turn back on automatically.
Go paperless! It's easier! You can search your computer, organize, find things quicker and also on the go. Plus you don't have as much clutter! Get bills emailed, set aside a time during the week to review your credit card statements and schedule payments. Bonus if you pull out your deductions: medical, charitable, at the same time.
Now that you are somewhat digitized, have a computer backup, ideally 2 - online and local. These are easy to set up and good to have. There are computer pros that can do this for you. But you want an external harddrive that backs up whenever your computer is on, and a cloud backup that runs as long as your system is on and connected to the internet.
I talked about this in another post but close unneccessary accounts! Credit cards you don’t use unless you need the credit history, CDs when they come due, old bank accounts or lines of credit. The less vulnerable points you have, the less chance for fraud and hacking!
