At a time when we're all pinching pennies, would you be surprised to learn that the pile of mail on your kitchen counter or the baskets of paperwork on your desk might be costing you more than the daily cup of coffee you gave up weeks ago?
It's true. Every hour that you spend looking under piles, wondering where you put this or that, or being unable to focus because you're not organized costs you. It costs you an hour you're not able to bill to a client. An hour you're unable to spend at the gym, working on your fitness and bringing your health care bills down. An hour with the kids, or even an hour relaxing.
But it can also cost you in the form of late fees, if you don't keep on top of your bills, or extra interest charges if you don't see notices of an increase on your credit card. "Even something as simple as missing a coupon or a sale and paying more than you need to comes into play here," says Alicia Rockmore, co-author of Everything (Almost) in Its Place. "It's embedded in the fact that clutter gets in the way of getting things done, and if you're not getting things done efficiently, it can cost you money."
So while overhauling your budget is great, and cutting out that coffee or your magazine subscription is better, you have to get organized as well. If you go about it the right way, it'll be painless, I promise. In fact, it will be refreshing.
Here's your plan of attack:
-- Ready your resources. Having the right supplies at hand will help make this process easier. Hanging folders, files and labels are necessities. You'll also want stamps and envelopes (so you're not wasting time scrounging for postal supplies for those bills you still mail by hand), sticky notes, a stapler, and some pens and pencils. You will also need a box in which to keep it all. I like a portable one, large enough to fit your file folders, but small enough to take to your accountant or from room to room.
-- Label your hanging folders according to your needs. Here are a few standard categories: Home and auto; healthcare and insurance; saving and investing; income and taxes; and credit cards and other debt. Then you can use file folders to sort subcategories. Let's say you have two credit cards. You'll want one manila folder for each account, and you'll put them both inside the credit cards file. When the books close in 2009, you can start new files and move the old to a standing filing cabinet or box.