Your $tock Mom

Fight that lazybug and get your life in order.  Staying organized will not only save you time; but, invariably, the time that you save will save you money.  Think of the hours you must spend on tasks and projects that you postponed thinking it okay to finish them later.  What were initially simple tasks will build into burdensome, time-consuming, free-time robbing drudgeries.

For starters, arrange each one of all your paid monthly bills (paid statement receipts) in their own envelope labeled with what they are and the year on the envelope face; for example, write “phone bill” (or, better-yet, the company name, like Verizon) and “2010” on the envelope face of your paid 2010 phone bills and place each month’s paid statement in the envelope in monthly sequence; do this for all your paid statements:  phone bills, cable bills, water bills, electric bills, etc.

You will be ahead of the game and happily organized when tax time comes.  It also proves to be very handy if you ever need to access or refer to any one of them in the future.  The envelopes can later be compiled and kept with the tax year to which they apply.  By the way, use recycled envelopes that you get with one of your monthly statements (or from junk mail); you will save money and time by avoiding the need to repeatedly purchase envelopes while, simultaneously, saving a tree.  Your credit card statements are organized in much the same manner; however, I feel they require more detailed treatment and therefore are posted under the title, “Get It Together” in the “Give Yourself Some Credit” category.  Yes; I expect you to go right now and read that post before heading to other destinations.  Start now; don’t be a victim of the lazybug.