Organization & Planning

The Holidays Are Here

The holidays are here. Yes, with many retailers starting there holiday shopping sales early this year, are you ready? This is a good thing, if you need to stay within a budget, start early.

First, make a list of all the people on your holiday gift list, then see if you can make changes.

Could you give a family gift instead of individual gifts?

Can you go in on a gift with someone else and share the cost?

Would a name draw work for the family party? With a name draw, each person buys only for the person whose name they drew. It’s fun and inexpensive. Do a separate drawing for the children so each child receives one gift and gives one gift. Make sure to set a dollar limit that everyone can afford.

Once your list is complete, set a firm amount for each person and don’t go over. The grand total of all your gifts should be a realistic amount that you can afford. Be honest with yourself and don’t overspend. You’ll regret it when the bills start coming in.

When shopping, keep your list of people and your budget amounts with you. Check the sales fliers now because holiday sales are already starting. Big retailers are also adding holiday layaway plans. Layaway plans work great if you know your budget. They allow you to make affordable payments without using a credit card.

You could also try giving gifts that don’t cost a lot of money. Service coupons are a wonderful gift. For example, you could cater a meal for a family that has a busy lifestyle. Try an inexpensive but meaningful gift, like a photo CD or memory album. The choices are endless if you take the time to think of what each person might enjoy most. This year with being at home more, I have come up with some great gift ideas that are meaningful, but not a budget breaker. I can’t tell you what they are as family members ready my newsletter.

The most important thing this holiday season is to have fun and enjoy your time together. Create new memories instead of new debts.

Decluttering Your Financial Records

Since we have all been at home for months and doing things around the home, I thought I would rerun this appropriate newsletter about what you need to keep and toss for your financial records.

Here is what you can get rid of:

Paystubs – Do you have a stack of them? You can get rid of last year’s because you have a W-2 that summarizes what you’ve earned. Keep the W-2. Make sure they match before shredding.

Bank Statements – If your bank gives you an annual summary or statement, then you can get rid of all the monthly or quarterly statements, but keep the annual summary / statement.

Tax Returns – Generally, you can get rid of tax returns that are seven years old or more (2013 and older) along with the supporting documentation. However, you will want to check with your tax preparer if you:

bought, sold, and/or own a home
hold certain investments
received certain gifts
have any other special circumstance that requires you to keep related paperwork indefinitely.

In other words, check with your tax preparer before shredding your returns.

An alternative to paper files

Keeping your records on your computer is a great alternative to paper files. We had a lot of paper clutter hanging around, so I started the process of scanning my records as pdfs. If you need a piece of documentation, it’s much easier to locate and open a single pdf than it is to search through a big, cluttered file full of paper. The best part is, that you don’t have to refile the pdf after you’re done looking at it. It’s also easier to fax or email a pdf if needed. Think of all the times you’ve needed to share information about insurances, taxes or rebates. Computer files are great to work with. Remember to keep a back up of your files. You wouldn’t want to lose them if your computer crashes.

Make sure to shred

Remember when I say “get rid of”, I mean for you to shred each and every document that has your personal information on it before throwing it away. You don’t want to offer dumpster divers an opportunity to steal your identity.

Call your tax preparer to see what you need to keep and start to go through your paperwork to eliminate what you don’t need. Happy Shredding!

Simplifying By Reducing

Yesterday, I told you what we did about the paper clutter. Today, let’s talk about the other clutter that was in our home.

To be honest, we have simplified and reduce a lot, but we still have more to go. We inherited many items from our families and I found that the sentimental items were the hardest to get rid of. For me this was the hardest. But I have come up with a solution that works for me and maybe you too.

We purchased our families home. And along with that came these items. What was I do with them? At first it was easily to toss many items. But then, I was left with the hard stuff. Those sentimental items that I didn’t want to keep but didn’t want to toss either. That was my dilemma.

This is what I have done to simplify the items in our house

My dad was a great athlete and had so much memorabilia. First, I decided that I wanted to remember all of this, so I took photos of all the items I wanted to remember. I have the memory and the photo now, so I was ready to get rid of the items. But what could I do with these items, it didn’t seem right to toss them. For his school memorabilia, I contact the schools and donated the items – yearbooks, sports uniforms, programs, pins, equipment, etc.
Nostalgic items was another category. I purchased a book called Trash or Treasure and contacted collectors. Here’s a couple of examples – I sold a metal toy to a collector for $500, I sold my mother’s cameras to a company in the mid-west, family china to a company that buys it for people seeking replacement items for their collections.
Boxes of newspaper clipping, from my fathers sports career. Just finished scanning all of these while at home during the pandemic.

I am down to the last few items and then I will be done. We have eliminated boxes and boxes from our basement and I am happy with where the items are now..

Simplifying By Reducing Paper

Do you find yourself swimming in paper? We did.

There are things you need to keep (tax records, purchase receipts, home expenses and more), but there are the other things that we seemed to keep as well. So much so that we had several files cabinets worth.

Over the past few years, our goal was to simplify and reduce the paper files we kept. This is what we did:

Scanned and digitized the family photos, slides and movies – this was a huge project
Scanned bank / credit card and investment statements
Eliminated manuals – we can look it up if we need to refer to this online
Scanned income tax returns
Scanned medical records
Scanned and organized recipes – this eliminated all the recipe cards from my mother and many cook books too

Now most files are scanned and backed up and the paper is eliminated. It’s such a great feeling when there is less paper. As an added bonus, we are down to one file cabinet. We sold the other file cabinets for some extra cash.

Remember to check to find out what you are required to keep and for how long before getting rid of your paper.

My Journey To Simplify

After having time to reflect these past few months, I have come to the conclusion that I want to simplify my life. I have too much going on and don’t want to run around at this hectic pace anymore. If I have learned anything these past few months, it’s to slow down. I have enjoyed our daily walks in the neighborhood, meeting new neighbors and just seeing the beauty of the area. These little simple things are making me happy.

What I realized is that I want more free time to do what we want when we want and not be guided by a to do list a mile long and what people expect of us. So with that said, join me for the month of July and see what changes I am making. Some changes will be with finances in mind, others will be my lifestyle. Stay tuned to find out more.

Tell me what you have done and that may inspire me to do the same. Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter so see everything.

Financial Literacy Month – Tip #25

Gift Buying

Here’s the tip from November 15 – The Holidays month:

By now you know who you are going to buy gifts for. You have pared down the list to fit your spending plan. Now is when the rubber meets the road and you actually need to start shopping. You should list a few alternatives for each person on your list, making sure the gifts are within your budget. Begin to check the internet, newspaper ads and whatever else you can think of to ensure you get the best price (or at least a very good one). If you can stand the thought of fighting the crowds remember Black Friday is a time for really great prices or maybe Cyber Monday to shop online.

To purchase a copy of either of my books Thrive In Five: Take Charge of Your Finances in 5 Minutes a Day or 111 Ways To Save