Since it’s officially spring, here are 7 top ways to spring-clean our finances. At least once a year, it is important to relook at all the aspects of our financial wellbeing.
It’s the easiest place to start. Cleaning your wallet will get you motivated to get the process going and then move on to the other 6 things to do.
I know that my wallet has got far more paper and cards than bank notes which I carry with me all the time, my wallet has stretched from all the papers. Whether it’s old raffle tickets or loyalty cards. Remove all the old till slips that you keep for tax puposes and never use. Cleaning out your wallet is the first place to get your finances and your wallet lighter.
Make sure your car, home, life, funeral and health insurance policies, top up policies, Credit life policies are updated to reflect any relevant life changes. Change of address, change of job, and check that your beneficiaries are current and correct.
You can request a free credit report every 12 months. Once you have your credit report, you can check for and correct any errors. This is especially important if you’re thinking of making any big purchases, like buying a new home. Try setting a calendar reminder so you remember to check your credit reports on a regular basis
While you may not think that you are in any financial trouble, it is possible that you have had a default or judgement against your name without your knowing it or that someone has fraudulently taken out credit in your name.
Bank charges – check all your bank accounts and decide if you need them all. Fees are charged on every account, so if you are not using it, and it’s costing money just to keep it open, then close the account.
Another thing to remember is to get a detailed bank statement, get out your multicolored highlighters and mark all the debit orders one color and all the bank charges another colour and make sure you know what all of them are for.
There has been a lot of debit order fraud and these guys put a debit order under R100 on your account, if you have one of these approach your bank immediately.
And if the costs on your account are too high, go to your bank and find an account that is better suited to your needs.
Saving Automatically, put a stop order on your account for the amount you want to save and let it go off at the beginning of the month, we all know that waiting for the end of the month to save what is left is a disaster, there is very little or nothing left at the end of the month.
Do a budget – this is often a schlep for a lot of people, but even if you do it once a year, at least you have an idea of what you are spending your money on, and if there are some things that you can cut or get rid of, then do it and give more to your savings
This has become very important on your cellphone, ICE is In Case Of Emergency, and the most important place is your cellphone because if you are in an accident, that’s the first thing the paramedics look, for who to call in the case of emergency
Now, you can do the same for your finances and policies, it doesn’t have to be fancy, list all your policies, put the latest copy of your will in there, include debt and anything else that you pay every month. Its tough enough for loved ones to deal with your death or illness, don’t make them dig through mountains of paper, or worse have to go through all the files on your computer
Catch up on late payments, short payments, this costs a lot of extra money, every time they phone you to remind you to pay it costs you money. Work out how you can pay off your debt quicker, the amount of interest you pay on debt is much higher than the interest you get on savings, pay off debt first
In short, these are our 7 tips for spring-cleaning your finances.
If you discover that your finances are going backwards and you have too much debt and need help, then contact RD Debt Counselling and we will help you through the process and if you really need help, then we can look at debt counselling.
Russell Dickerson from RD Debt Counselling chats about RD Debt Counselling and how they can help you become debt free in the shortest possible time. Catch Russell on East Rand Stereo, every Saturday morning at 8:15.
