Spring Clean Your Finances, Part 1

When spring rolls around it's easy to feel motivated by all the fresh air, sunshine, and birds chirping. Yard work, deep cleaning, packing away your winter clothes - it all just feels so good. There's a feeling on the first nice day of the year when it's warm enough to put the car windows down, you need sunglasses, and everything feels fresh and possible. I bet the Germans have a word for that, they seem to have one for everything. Feelingudagin? Probably not, but I'm no language expert, so maybe? 

This is the time of year when you should get your financial house in order as well as your actual house. Clear out the cobwebs of your wallet and organize your mind. Get your life together and enjoy the nice weather. 

So now, follow along with me, step by step, oh baby, and spring clean your finances.

Step 1: Ok, maybe not lots of fun, I lied. This might be tough, especially if you've been avoiding certain financial matters hoping they'd go away. Spoiler: They do not. Take a moment and really think about the things that are getting you down about your money. Make a promise to yourself to take action and clear up this extra clutter in your mind. Do you have credit card debt? No savings? Write it down, make it real, and work on it. 

Step 2: Put all of your things in one place. Duh. When your bills are emailed to you, put them in a separate folder for bills only. When a bill arrives in the mail put it in an envelope, drawer, box, whatever. Just keep everything in one place. I have a photo box from a craft store that I use as a little office. It has all my bills, checkbook, stamps, the good pen, that kind of stuff. You can get as plain or as fancy as you like here, just get it together. 

Step 3: Look at your calendar and decide which day of the month will be your best bill paying day or days. Once or twice a month is best, but once a week could work, too, if you have a huge amount of incoming bills and are paid that frequently. Make a commitment to sit down and pay your bills on whatever day or days you decide. That's it! It's just you and me, making this promise. Not really, but I had to work that song lyric in somehow. 

Step 4: Gather any important paperwork and put it somewhere safe. If you want to go nuts organizing with labels and folders, you do you. Just so long as all your stuff is in one place and easy to find. Make a pdf of any important emails and share them in your Drive with people who are important to you. Insurance papers, bank account numbers, passwords, retirement account info, all that stuff. If you die alone and cats eat your face the last thing your family wants to deal with is looking for your PayPal log-in info so they can access your balance (to pay for vet bills).

Step 5: Now that all your bills are in one place, you can rework you budget to make sure you're all in order. You have a budget, right????? Get on it now. Now is the time. Just do it already. Tell your money where to go so you don't wonder where it all went. 

Whew! That was a lot of stuff! In part 2 I'll talk about credit score and gift cards. Honestly, this was the hardest part and you did it! Since I'm all out of NKOTB gifs I will stop here. I mean it though, good work!