Have you started your spring cleaning yet? Will you be including your finances in this yearly ritual? Don’t worry, you won’t need cash advances in order to make it happen, but you may want a good paper shredder to kick start your cleaning supply list.
Going paperless is not just an environmentally friendly service anymore. When there are no paper trails containing your personal information, there is less chance that someone could steal your identity. Invest in a shredder. The paper which already clutters up your desk drawers should not just be thrown away.
Use online banking. You will have stored bank account information easily accessible online. There is no need to save copies of old statements or credit card bills. Take out your new shredder and destroy this old information. There are some items which you do need to keep and may not be available on a secured website. Make digital copies. Scan the documents and store them electronically yourself. Backup this information and save copies in separate locations before you destroy the paper version.
There will always be some original documents which need to be kept safe and out of harm’s way. You drawers and file folders will be much more organized once the excess is gone.
What else could you do to spring clean your home? Work on your budget. We haven’t even picked up a sponge yet and the house is getting fresher already. Keep the momentum going and attack the dead weight in your finances. Give a good look at your credit score to clean up any mistakes or find mismanaged accounts you may have forgotten about. Your shredder may not be able to help clear up your debt, but your financial spring cleanup will begin to work at minimizing it.
High interest cash advances and credit cards should be paid off quickly.
If you already have a working budget in place, take some time this spring and give it a tune-up. Maybe you had paid off a bill or two over the last year and can now refocus this money towards a new goal. Perhaps you have done the opposite and gained debt over the last year and you now need to create a new strategy to pay it off. Whichever the case may be, take a look at your budget as a great spring cleaning project. It’s like anything else in your house, just because you clean each week, it doesn’t mean you get behind all the furniture. Really take a look at what you owe and to whom. Reevaluate the interest rates to prioritize the payments. Of course, cash advance debt should be paid off first and then focus minimizing credit card debt.
Once you finish with the regular washing of walls and cleaning of rugs, the house takes on a whole new vibe. Your budget and finances can too when you include them in the spring cleanup. You can make your plan to keep things tidy, but we all know that unwelcome messes tend to slowly creep back into our homes. Children and pets find their own ways to infiltrate back into our rugs and yes, unexpected bills tend to sneak back into our newly formed budget. Keep third party money like cash advances and credit cards out of the picture as best as you can. Throw a towel down on the rug on those muddy days. We have to learn to prevent the big messes in order for the fresh cleaning vibe to carry us through the year.
