Sometimes, our preconceived notions about money get the best of us and we start to believe ideas that Spring cleaning is generally known as the time of year where we break out the broom and catch up on household chores. However, it’s also the perfect time to think past tackling that messy garage and evaluate our financial cleanliness as well. Below is our suggested guide when getting started with your financial spring cleaning.
Organize Your Paperwork
Even though retirement typically happens when you’re older, in actuality, the younger you start building
Financial paperwork is often one of the easiest items to let pile up and clutter the corners of your home, as it can be challenging trying to figure out what should stay and what should go. A good way to make sure you hold onto all your important documents while reducing clutter is to convert them digitally. Make sure when you do this you keep them in a secure online location and back them up onto an external hard drive in case something should happen to your computer.
If there’s certain documents you want to keep offline, move the paper copies to a fireproof safe. Another way to clean up your paperwork load is by going online and changing your bill and other financial statement preferences to paperless. When throwing out old documents you no longer deem necessary, be sure to shred them so you don’t risk falling victim to identity theft.
Detox Your Debt
Paying off debt is an important step when moving forward in your money journey, and there’s no better time to set up a debt payment plan than springtime. Start by reviewing your finances and mapping out how much you owe and to where. Set up a plan to start tackling smaller debts first, as a small win can lead to monumental motivation. You can also work directly with Greater Niagara FCU to set up a no-fee credit card balance transfer to consolidate debt and reduce the number of accounts you manage.
Scrub Your Spending Habits
Buying a home is often sought after as the “American dream” but that’s not everyone’s dream, and it’s
Nobody wants to think about what they can’t afford, but most people do like looking at what they can afford. When scrubbing your spending habits and starting to build out a budget, don’t think of the process as figuring out what you have to sacrifice, but rather what you want to prioritize.
As you review your finances, look for bad habits that are negatively impacting your future money goals and take those into consideration when coming up with a budget. It’s important to keep up with your spending monthly, since your budget may start to change as your spending habits do.
Set New Financial Goals
Maybe there’s a big family vacation you’ve been wanting to take, a wedding to plan, a new home to find, or maybe your goal is as simple as finally setting up that emergency fund. Spring cleaning is a great time to sit down and discover where you are in your financial journey and ask yourself questions like, “Am I meeting previous goals I’ve set? Do I need to reevaluate my spending? What do I value most at this stage in my life?”
Figuring out how you’ve managed goals in the past will help you set new ones for the future!
