Many people procrastinate when it comes to doing their financial chores. Most people live busy lives, and difficult or mundane tasks often fall to the bottom of the to-do list. Regardless of how much money you make, letting your financial chores pile up can be devastating to your future financial happiness and can take you much more time to fix than by simply taking care of them to begin with. There are a number of financial chores that should be done on a regular basis and here are some simple ways to tackle them.
Do A Spending Review
At least once per quarter, you should do a spending review to track where your money is going and how closely you are adhering to your monthly budgets. Doing this review will help you identify spending issues, see where spending can be cut or eliminated, and whether more of your budget should be allocated to savings. To review your spending, use your bank statements, credit card statements, and checking account ledger to see the amounts that you have actually spent at different retailers during the time period under review.
Examine Your Banking Options
Many banks have a wide variety of banking options to choose from and the type of bank account that you had 3 years ago may not be the best bank account for you today. You should examine your banking options at your current bank and several other local banks to see if you are still using the best bank account for your needs. You can use an online account comparison feature, which can show you several choices based on how you use your account. Be sure to take into account specifics like number and location of ATMs, how many times per month you can do teller based transactions, and what the account minimum may be.
Check Your Credit Report
Reviewing your credit report on a regular basis can help you identify problems and potential identity theft quickly before it becomes a bigger, more expensive issue. Every consumer is guaranteed one free credit report per year from each of the three main credit reporting bureaus by federal law, so requesting one credit report every few months will help give you an idea of where you stand credit-wise. It is important to remember that not all creditors report to all three credit bureaus so each report may have slightly different information for you to review.
What financial chores have you been putting off?