How to Organize Your Money

Did you know that you are throwing money away every day? That is right, every day that you do not organize your money, you are throwing it away. How can this be? If you fail to balance your checkbook, you might write a check for more thatn you have in your account. Your bank will charge you a penalty for doing this. That result in needlessly lost money.

Another very realistic scenario is if you throw away some junk mail and old receipts and accidentally throw out some money that had gotten stuck in the pile. Now, that really is throwing mony away.

There is a simple remedy for all of this. That solution is to organize your money. You probably dread the thought, and with good reason. Organizing your money can be very difficult if approched using the wrong method, or worse, no method at all. In the following paragraphs, you will learn the proper, easy way to organizae your money.

Merge your credit cards. Rather than having a lot of different credit cards, consolidate all of your expenses on one credit card. This can result in less uncertainty over which card to use, it can give you a better idea of how much debt you're accumulating, it may give you more back for your dollar, and you'll only have to write out one payment check per month.

Keep all your bills in one spot. This is essential to paying your bills on time or even at all. All you have to do is establish some kind of container: a basket, a drawer, a bin, even a bucket! Let this container be used exclusively for bills and nothing else. Don't even let a stray paperclip find its way into your bin. Finally, whenever you recieve a bill, place it directly into your container. This way, all your bills are organizaed and you can easily see what is due and what isn't.

Organize your expenses, while you spend. As you spend, just record that outlay. This can be called your Expense Summary. A computer program like Quicken or a straightforward spreadsheet is great for this purpose, or you can do this with paper and pen.

Balance your checkbook monthly. In order for you to have an idea of how much money is sitting in your checking account, which checks have cleared, and any errors that you or your bank may have made, you have to balance your checking account. It doesn't take that long if you balance your checkbook the same day your statement and canceled checks arrive back from the bank each month.

Keep your tax-related stuff together. Before tax season, you'll start to receive tax related information from your job, your bank, etc. Keep all of these tax-related papers in a labeled file folder. This way, when you're ready to do your taxes, you won't have to search for the papers you need.

It you do all of this, you will quickly find that not only will you stop throwing money away, you will start having more money to deal with than you previoulsy did. With that money, you could buy some extra food, join some fishing organizations, or go on a shopping spree. You can do all of this because you orgaized your money.