Did you know that spring cleaning your living space can lead to improved mood, decreased stress, and heightened creativity? Just imagine what spring cleaning your finances can do! There are many ways to clean up your finances and taking the time to do the following can help set you up for success through the remainder of the year.
Here are a few ways to spring clean your finances:
Review regular expenses & purge
Taking the time to look over your expenses and straighten out your priorities is a great first step in cleaning up your finances. Ask yourself questions like: do I need all of these online subscriptions? Do I eat out more often than I need to? See where you can eliminate expenses on things you don’t really use or can do without.
Clean up your credit
Get a free annual credit report from each of the 3 major credit reporting companies through annualcreditreport.com. Review each to see if there are errors and clear them up with the credit reporting companies.
Tune-up your finances
After reviewing your expenses and credit, spend some time building a budget. Once you know where all of your money is going and you can determine how your dollars are working for you. This gives you a chance to add a little more to your retirement contributions and tweak your investments.
Review important records and clean out files
Go through your records and keep what’s necessary. Keep copies of tax returns, supporting tax documents, and receipts for as long as you can be audited, which is up to six years.
Shred documents you don’t need
After cleaning out your records, make sure to shred documents with sensitive information. Keep receipts until the warranties expire or the credit card statement arrives. Keep account statements and paystubs for one year, then shred them.
Update beneficiaries
If there have been changes to your family, update your retirement and insurance accounts and review your will.
Want to learn more about how to make the most of your finances? Check out our free Financial Wellness resources at https://www.kitsapcu.org/personal/financial-wellness/.
