The goal: Dedicate 1 hour a day, for 7 days, and improve the health of our finances.
Hour 3 (00:00 – 50:00)
Simplify our finances –
Schedule recurring online payments.
Establish direct deposits.
Organize, file, and purge old bills, checks, and other related documents.
Hour 3 (50:00 – 60:00)
Reevaluate current filing system –
Can I make documents easier to find?
Should I scan certain documents and store them digitally?
Can I receive certain bills online, thereby reducing paperwork?
Is my current system working? If not, what can I do to make it work?
Is my current system too complex? Does it meet my needs?
Over the course of this week, I’ll write four more articles about improving the health of our finances. Each article should take just a few minutes to read, and the steps outlined should take about an hour to do. Depending on the health of your finances, you might be able to breeze through the steps in just minutes – or it might take you much longer, if things are in need of repair. My goal, however, is to keep the steps to a minimum, and to make them as easy-to-follow as is possible.
Consider Hour 3. If you will take the time to do all of the steps outlined above, you’ll have a organized system for storing financial documents and an automated system for paying bills. And, you will have accomplished all of these things, in about an hour!
If you haven’t done so, be sure to subscribe to No Credit Needed, via email or RSS, and make sure you catch hours 4 – 7.
I’m amazed at the number of people who miss out on the opportunity to pay bills online in a matter of minutes. A few mouse clicks and you can be completely done for the month. Great way to save time and money (i.e. stamps!).
Thanks for this simple series! I’ll be linking to it when you are finished. Even those of us who are pretty financially aware can always use some help focusing on the basics. I’m really enjoying your suggestions.
While I pay all my bills online, I hesitate to setup automatically recurring payments. My reasoning for this stems from the question “What if something drastic happens to me and I (or my family) need to put my money toward emergency expenses? In other words, how easy would it be for me or a family member to STOP the automatic payments if needed?
I may still be able to pay the phone bill on time, but may wish to free up funds and wait to make the payment closer to the due date rather than when the bill is posted (and automatically deducted).
The ease of paying online is wonderful, but I still like visiting my “Friday List of Bookmarks,” visiting those sites, and making the payment manually – when I’m ready – not when their billing system wants it.
@Kate… The series should be complete by the end of the week…
@Phil… I actually set up automatic payments on “my end”. In other words, all payments are “push” instead of “pull”. I do not give access to my bank account to the companies with which I do business. Instead, all payments are initiated on “my end”.