Fantastic ways to spring-clean your finances

 

You already know spring is the perfect time to reorganize your home. So why not do the same with your finances? We asked 400 shoppers to share their top financial clutter zones and built these tips for de-cluttering, de-stressing and starting fresh: 

 

Reign in those receipts.  Tackle receipt and warranty pile-up by checking retailers’ return policies, and then filing receipts in a 12-pocket folder, with a pocket for each month. If you’ve purchased an extended warranty, staple this to your receipt and file in a separate “warranties” folder. Since many stores are moving to electronic or emailed receipts, you can also create an online folder and set an email reminder to clean it out twice a year.

 

Keep incoming bills top of mind.  Naturally, bills can easily get lost in a pile of mail. Create a simple mail station with labeled pockets – banking, personal, urgent – and sort through your to-dos every week.springcleaning

 

Keep outgoing bills moving.  Start by setting up a desktop organizational system with envelopes, stamps and checkbook. Or skip the envelope and pay online through your bank or an online bill payment service, further reducing clutter and chaos. 

 

Whittle your wallet.  Between receipts, money, credit cards, loyalty cards and coupons, wallets have a funny way of expanding. Instead of letting yours burst at the seams, why not divide and conquer? Carry a primary wallet with your go-to cash and credit cards. Then have a second, smaller case that houses your loyalty cards, coupons and receipts.

 

Kick the paper habit.  You can go green and stop getting paper billing statements altogether. Worried your bills will be out of sight, out of mind? Use your favorite online calendar system to enter your due dates. Then make sure they’re always top of mind by setting weekly reminders, and even color-coding, italicizing or bolding your entries.

 

Of course, these aren’t the only areas where shoppers crave more organization – we heard calls to help with organizing tax documents, credit cards, gift cards, coupons and more. We’ll be sure to check in later this year to see how their progress is coming along.