Bring the joy of spring cleaning into your financial house, too!
- Evaluate your debt load: How much do you owe, and how much are you paying the lenders in interest? Comparison shop what you’re paying in interest with what’s available now, and consider refinancing.
- Knock out a small debt: Although starting with the highest interest rate makes the most sense mathematically, researchers found that people are more motivated to continue with a debt-reduction plan if they knock out a small debt in its entirety rather than merely a chunk of a bigger one!
- Update your budget
- Review your payroll withholding
- Revisit your insurance: Life, homeowner’s and car. Make sure your life insurance beneficiaries are still up to date, and evaluate premiums, deductibles and coverage levels.
- Check your credit report: Get your free credit reports and correct any mistakes.
- Examine your accounts: Check for fees you don’t know about, subscriptions or services you never use and other mystery charges.
- Evaluate your 401(k) allocations: As a rule of thumb, find the percentage of your portfolio that should be invested in stocks by subtracting your age from 110. Rebalance for changes over the last year.
- Throw stuff out: Keep documents that pertain to your taxes for seven years; credit card and bank statements that don’t have any tax significance for a year.
While you’re at it, you can make the rest of this year easier by:
- Downloading the AirTeller app
- Sign up for e-statements and bills
