Taking Your First Steps to Personal Finance Success

 

 

 

 

Buying your first car and getting your first “gas” credit card are usually the events that propel you into the world of “monthly bills”. Before that you rode your bike and had no clue what a “monthly statement” even looked like.

 

Of course, you had no clue either what to do with those statements so you tossed them on the table and didn’t worry about them. I’ll bet it didn’t take too long before you realized that you had better get a handle on things and get organized before you got into big trouble.

 

Just some simple organization will keep you out of trouble like bouncing checks and exceeding credit limits. It will, also, help you to immediately see when you are being charged for things you didn’t buy or letting fraud go by unnoticed.

 

 

Ideas on Helping to Organize Your Personal Finance for Success

 

Set up a filing system either hard copy or on your computer.

 

A hard copy file is easy to set up and stays at your fingertips for easy access. A basic filing cabinet costs about $30.00.

 

There are a lot of good software programs for keeping financial records and you don’t need an expensive one just for your personal needs. You do need to remember to back up this file.

 

Open your mail when it comes in. Put your unpaid bills in a designated spot so that when you are ready to pay them, they are all in one place.

 

Set a specific day and time for paying your bills and let nothing deters you from your appointed rounds.

 

Once every two weeks should be sufficient.

 

Balance your checkbook and do it often.

 

After every check written is not too often. It will prevent you from bouncing checks which is costly and unnecessary.

 

Banks charge up to $35.00 for a bounced check and businesses charge up to another $35.00 so that $20.00 check you wrote when you only had $19.95 in your account can cost you $90.00 and a lot of stress.