| How to organize your financial paperwork |
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Jones has another tip for making sure you stay organized:
Reward yourself for doing your filing. Jones "wins" a
trip to the gym for a workout if he does his filing on Saturday.
Also, try to coordinate your filing system with your
organizer, whether it's an electronic personal digital assistant,
a paper-based Day Timer, or a conventional calendar. In other words,
mark due dates for bills or the dates and times of social events
on your calendar at the same time you are filing the invitations
or credit card statements in your filing folders.
It's also important to use a system that you understand
and will want to use. For instance, it doesn't matter if you file
automobile-related papers (insurance policy, warranty information,
maintenance records) under car, automobile or Toyota, says Korey.
What matters is that you're consistent and you choose the filing
system that you are most comfortable with.
Also be flexible. It may make sense to keep an 8½-by-11-inch
manila envelope next to your computer so that when you pay bills
that are tax-deductible, you can simply move the receipt into the
folder after paying the bill. Find the simplest way to keep order
among your papers.
Most people will want a filing framework that can
be sorted by month, topic or another method. Then determine if you
really need subcategories. "I believe that you want your filing
system to be as simple and user-friendly as possible, which usually
means fewer categories versus having 200 folders each with one piece
of paper inside," Morgenstern says.
Sorting
out filing systems
Month-by-month. If you don't have a
lot of different suppliers and vendors to pay and don't own a lot
of credit cards, setting things up month by month can be a great
way to organize your paper files, says Morgenstern. You can even
buy a self-contained accordion file if space is at a premium. If
you find you have too many bills and statements to sort through
each month, you can set up such subcategories as bank, utility,
credit card.
Subject or category. Choose
topics such as "insurance," "bills to pay,"
"auto," "Johnny's soccer," to file your different
papers and then file alphabetically. Feel free to further subdivide
by category, for example, by having a general folder for credit
cards and then separate folders for each credit card company that
you do business with.
Color-coded. Korey is
a big fan of using color-coded folders or folder labels so you can
tell at a glance what's in a folder. Financial folders can be green;
social invitations, red, and insurance policies, blue.
Action, hold onto, reference.
Karli Bertocchi, of Organized with Style near Chicago, recommends
a filing system in which you put bills, wedding invitations, magazine
renewals and other items that require a timely response in an "action"
file. If you have a lot of action items, you may want to get a circular
file so you can assign specific due dates. For example, put RSVPs
under the third of the month if you need to reply before the 10th
of the month. Legal documents, such as wills or insurance policies,
go in a safe place. A separate folder could be for current items
that you may need to refer to, such as warranties, receipts for
bills paid, etc.
Staying
organized
Once you adopt a filing system, stick with it. Don't fall back into
bad habits or delay filing so long that it will take a whole day's
effort to file everything. Instead, chip away at your filing. Set
aside a little time each day or at least once a week to file.
And if your papers fall into disarray because of illness
or more pressing work-related deadlines, don't give up. Instead,
schedule time to get things back in order once you have more free
time. Tackle the problem a little bit at a time.
In other words, set achievable goals. Before you
know it, you'll be back to being organized.
For advice on which documents to keep and for how
long, see the sidebar, "How
long to keep financial records."
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