How I Stay Organized…

The main way that I stay organized begins with three important things: 1) a file cabinet, 2) a shredder and 3) financial software/spreadsheets.

I have a 4 drawer file cabinet.

Drawer 1: A folder for each accounts that I receive statements for monthly/quarterly and a seperate folder for receipts and gift certificates for easy access

Drawer 2: Dormant accounts that I rarely use, important receipts and gift certificates – each has separate folder

Drawer 3: Law school and student loan documents

Drawer 4: Mortgage, employment and insurance documents – very important documents

Shredder

Shred, shred, shred – you do not want your information stolen

Remember: with catalogs, the inside order form has your address as well

Sort through mail right away

Throw out junk mail immediately

Financial Software

I access Yodlee every morning and get a glimpse of my financial status and for bill alerts

Pocket quicken saves me time with my finances – I enter on the fly expenses during the day

I set up my desktop quicken for automatic updates. Then I sink it with my pocket quicken in the evening or every other day.

Comments

When you first start to get organized, it may seem like a daunting task but it doesn’t have to be. By setting up your folders first, organizing will be a lot simpler. Buy some hanging folders and use the labels that come with them to mark each account/lender/bill payee.

When you go through all of your paperwork, put the oldest account statement towards the back and that way they will all be in order with your most recent in front and easy to access.

Bankrate has an article entitled What Financial Records to Keep, How Long to Keep Them. Check it out to see how long you should keep certain records.

I had a problem once with AT&T. They had a system conversion during one of their mergers and I received duplicate bills. I called and was told to disregard the duplicate bill. Somehow, the bill got transferred to collection but luckily I had the records to prove that I paid the specific bill in question and that I paid on a monthly basis and timely. They never bothered me again but I was very thankful that I had the information handy.