Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Cleaning Your Financial House
By Lynn Forgy A fellow writer of this blog, Agatha Curtis, recently submitted an article on decluttering your home. Her very informative (and motivating) article made me contemplate my “financial clutter”. I have a file system, but it’s not updated as often as it should be, and I of course forget where I’ve put certain papers so I make a new file. Then 6 months later I’ll find the original file, but can’t seem to locate the second file. Sound familiar?  To get started – GET ORGANIZED! My problem seems to be the I keep EVERYTHING!! I have receipts from 5 years ago for Pete's sake. Fortunately, Crown has a list on their website of critical papers that your family should be able to obtain in the event of an emergency. Once you have this information gathered (and it’s accessible to those in your family who will need to know where to find it), you’ve accomplished the most difficult part! Sorting out the wheat from the chaff. Now, how long should you keep certain documents? It depends. Certain documents (like tax returns) are kept for 7 years, others forever. EHow has a short list of documents and their retention length. Another website that is much more thorough and detailed is Pueblo.gsa.gov. It might be a little less daunting if you take it a step at a time. Start at the beginning of the list and work your way down. Just keep at it - and before you know it, you'll financial mess will be well-organized!  Hopefully, this information will get you started on the path to decluttering your financial life. If you have tips or tricks that you’d like to share, please email us by using the link on the top right. |
posted by Krista at 10:21 AM
