Are your finances so complex that they leave you feeling overwhelmed? Does the mere thought of sifting through a mountain of forms and documents during tax season make you cringe?
When it comes to life stressors, our finances and how we feel about them are major contributors to our general sense of well-being. If your financial situation is complex, you might want to take steps to simplify it a little bit.
By making things simpler, it’s easier to remember, understand, and use. You also avoid potential mistakes and fees.
Do you have fifteen minutes to spare?
If so, here are a few simple ways you use that extra time to make your life a little easier.
1. Opt For Electronic Statements
I want to start this list with something simple – stop getting paper statements.
It’s a waste to get credit card, banking, and brokerage statements each month when you can get them electronically.
Before electronic statements were ubiquitous, I would get paper statements. Every month, I’d open the mail, scan the statements, and then shred them. It was a huge waste of time, especially since I never needed them.
If you’re concerned about reviewing your statements, you can still do that with electronic statements. One extra step I take is that for credit cards, I have them send transaction notifications via email. This immediately alerts me if there’s activity and I can catch fraud before I even see a statement.
2. Renegotiate A Fixed Monthly Cost
Do you pay a monthly cable or cell phone bill? When was the last time you called to try to renegotiate?
If you are no longer under contract, you may be able to renegotiate how much you pay each month. Call customer service and give it a try.
If that doesn’t work, you could always switch providers. It’s very easy to go online and comparison shop for services, whether it’s a cell phone provider or insurance. Your providers have competitors and those competitors would love to have your business.
If you find better prices elsewhere, bring them to your current provider to see if they will match or beat those prices.
3. Visit AnnualCreditReport.com
You should check your credit report once a year. If you have been requesting them annually, each review should be quick because your situation usually doesn’t change much each year. Plus, you’ll likely remember what you did over the last twelve months.
You can now check your reports from each bureau every single week, but that’s unnecessary.
If you see any errors, dispute them. If you see anything suspicious, research it thoroughly. You want to fix errors as quickly as possible because the dispute process can take a bit of time.
4. Close Unnecessary Accounts
How many bank accounts do you have? What about financial apps? Ask yourself whether you need that many accounts and apps – the answer is no.
If an account isn’t serving you anymore, close it. You don’t have to deal with any tax forms or fears that it’ll be broken into – closing it removes that financial headache.
When I did this years ago, I drew a financial network map that showed all my accounts and how they are connected. It highlighted just how many unnecessary accounts I had. It also made it easy to close the accounts I no longer needed.
The only exception to this is your credit cards. Closing a credit card can have a negative effect on your credit score. If you want to close it anyway and you have another card with that issuer, ask if they would be willing to consolidate your accounts so your total credit limit remains the same. This can mitigate some of the effects of closing the card.
5. Start Budgeting
If you aren’t budgeting, you don’t know where your money is going. You can fix that by starting a budget and tracking what you spend. This can be as simple as signing up for a free tool like Mint. As you get comfortable with budgeting, you can look to other budgeting apps for additional features and functionality.
The key idea behind a budget is that it’s not about restricting what you spend. It’s about knowing where all of your money is going each month. If you aren’t tracking it, you don’t truly know.
Then, once you understand your spending, you can adjust it so it helps you meet your financial goals.
6. Search For Missing Money
This last time won’t simplify your financial life but it could put a few extra dollars in your pocket. There are billions of dollars in unclaimed property and money in state and local government coffers.
Where does this money come from? If someone pays a deposit and never collects, that money is turned over to the state. If a bank account is deemed inactive and closed, the money is turned over to the state. These scenarios happen quite often and that’s why there are billions in unclaimed funds.
You can check to see if you’ve left money behind by going to MissingMoney.com. To claim your missing money, you have to follow the state or local government’s process and those vary from place to place.
Some companies that will claim to help you recover your funds but you don’t need them. You can do this yourself for free and it’s usually very easy.
Conclusion
Simplifying your finances doesn’t have to be difficult or take a lot of time. Even with just fifteen minutes, you can take on little tasks that will make things just a little bit easier.
Closing a bank account means one fewer tax form next April. Taking a minute to search for unclaimed funds could yield a nice little reward.
By taking these small actions, you gain greater control over your financial life and make things a little bit easier going forward.
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