Friday Declutter Challenge - your bill-paying centre

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Do you have a bill-paying centre?

It could be a desk in your home, a shelf or even just a plastic envelope or Office-in-a-bag.

The point it that you have some place to keep all the things you'll need like:

• The actual invoices
• Calculator
• Red pen (or is it just me who loves a nice, thick gel pen for writing PAID)
• Etc.
  

Everybody in your home should know where this is so that you don't have to hunt all over the place to find the bills when it's time to pay.

My suggestion is this:

• when the mail arrives, sort into different types of piles
  
• take the bills and circle the DUE date (see why I like the red gel pen?)
  
• based on your method of payment, either use Outlook or your paper calendar to diarise/ schedule to pay them
• I use internet banking or direct debit order so I never leave more than two days prior to the due date to attend to them.
• now put them in your bill-paying centre so they're ready for you. Do this in chronological order so whenever you look at the pile, the most urgent one is always on top.

excuse the blurry pic

Your challenge

1. Declutter anything that doesn't belong
2. Dedicate a place for your bill-paying centre
3. Organise it with everything you need
4. Relax and have a nice cup of tea or coffee for being responsible :)
   

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For two days only, get the financial e-course for just $21,60 (20% off) when you use coupon code money - offer expires Sat 25th 12pm EST

Have you taken the financial check-up quiz yet? You'll find it about halfway down on this information page: 10 steps to YOUR financial freedom

Join me tomorrow as we declutter and organise...

For two days only, get the financial e-course for just $21,60 (20% off) when you use coupon code money - offer expires Sat 25th 12pm EST

our bill-paying centres (or centers :))

Get ready to post your before and after pics ... if you want to, no pressure!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

For two days only, get the financial e-course for just $21,60 (20% off) when you use coupon code money - offer expires Sat 25th 12pm EST

Have you taken the financial check-up quiz yet? You'll find it about halfway down on this information page: 10 steps to YOUR financial freedom

Friday Declutter Challenge - receipts

Today we're decluttering and organising receipts.

Which receipts?

• In your car
• In your handbag
• In your wallet
• Stashed on your entrance hall table
• On your desk

Here's an article I wrote called 5 steps to organised receipts

This week, your challenge is to

• Gather the receipts all together in one place
• Make piles - those you need to keep (please check with your accountant for some retention guidelines as these differ from country to country and from state to state) and those you can toss
• For the ones you're keeping, organise them either by month (which is what I do) or by category first and then by month (household - Jan, business - Jan)
  

Share in the comments how you did!

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If you could use some help with your finances, check out

10 steps to YOUR financial freedom

(Don't forget to take the financial check-up quiz about half way down the page)

Tomorrow we're decluttering...

receipts

It's tax time in the US...and will be happening soon in South Africa too, so we may as well get our finances in order.

Right?

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If you could use some help with your finances, check out

10 steps to YOUR financial freedom

(About half way down the page, there's a financial check-up quiz so be sure to take that)

WFMW - Going green to save money

Have you ever checked out my sidebar?

I have a link under my Organise your Finances heading called Simple Savings. It's an Australian site but the financial principles talked about are applicable all over the world!

I have a fair amount of Aussie readers (hello Tina, Kin and Ali) who might know about this site already but if you don't, go over and get their Simple Savings newsletter. That's for everyone, not just Australians!

Just based on my own experiences when we visited Australia in 2004, the Aussies are way more advanced than South Africans with regard to eco-friendly programmes. I'm by no means the most eco-friendly person but I do my best with what I do know.

As an aside, Oprah did a "going green" show that was aired here last week and I was amazed at the simple things we can do, like switching appliances off at the wall, using less serviettes (napkins), using those long-lasting lightbulbs, etc. The one lady said she saw an electricity saving of US $50 in one month (that's R350! or Aus $58).

I've just received my October Simple Savings newsletter and as well as the great savings tips, there is also a link to their free going green 2008 Simple Savings calendar which they have said we can freely pass along to others, hence this blog post.

Each month talks about how going green will save you money. For example...

1. Limit your impulse buys. Impulse buys are always things we can do without.
2. Only buy essentials. Leave the extras on the shelf.
3. Learn the difference between a 'need' and a 'want'.
4. Re-use everything. Before you throw anything out, try and use it one more time.
5. Fix things when they break. Don't buy a new one.
6. Be a creative cook. Learn how to cook from basic ingredients. [there are some great vegetarian recipes in this month's newsletter too - I can't wait to try the vegetarian chilli (yum)!]
7. Live in the smallest space possible.
8. Buy in bulk for better value and less packaging.
9. Grow your own food. Food is free when it comes out of the ground.
10. Reduce your power consumption. No need to pay more than you have to.
11. Reduce your water consumption.

Please go download the calendar, sign up to the Simple Savings newsletter and start saving money! I've already downloaded mine and it looks great!

For more WFMW posts, head on over to http://rocksinmydryer.net

Do you need some financial help?

Laura Williams from Laura Williams' Musings is giving one really blessed blog reader a place on a Financial Freedom e-course. All you have to do is leave a comment on her review post to be considered for the drawing.

You can read more about it and go enter here.

All the best to you!

P.S. I don't know how she does it all with 7 kids! Laura, maybe you should write a guest blog post for me and tell us how you do it :)

Creative financing

Remember this post where I told you about my handbag obsession?

All of these

equals this beauty!

My husband told me to take out insurance on it and I actually considered it for a few minutes!

Frugal gift ideas - bookmarks

I love books and I also love bookmarks - I have stacks and stacks and of course, I read many at one time so I always have about 3 that I use all at the same time.


I first saw a bookmark like this at a craft market in Cape Town, bought one and then decided to make my own. So I did.

I present exhibit A.

this is what they look like when they're in the book

You can give them to people on their own or together with a book. I've now made peace with the fact that I'm a book person and I love giving books as gifts. In fact, I get a kick out of being the one to give babies their first book (you can never start too early) :-)

Sometimes I give them together with a book; sometimes I don't. What's nice is you can make them in favourite colours, different sorts of beads, etc.

Annie, don't forget to send me your address.

Tackle it Tuesday - the budget

As I mentioned yesterday, we are going away this weekend. So I decided to be responsible and tackle the budget ahead of time so that we know exactly what's going on.

When we go on holiday, we try and prepay as much as we can - obviously flights and car rental are prepaid this time, as is 50% of the bed and breakfast. So it's really only spending money and the other 50% (which I will pay once we get there and see that everything is in order - one day I must tell you the horror story of another holiday place, which is the SOLE reason I don't prepay absolutely everything).

What I then do is transfer the spending money into a separate, mostly unused credit card and then it doesn't mess with our other money. I like things neat and separate - nicely filed! As I'm typing this, I just realised that I do this with many aspects of my life - that's why I have 6 different blogs, 3 desks, 3 credit cards, 5 different email addresses, a tote bag for every hobby, and so on. Are you weird like this too?

I usually do a mammoth exercise every month and balance each of our accounts (my business, my personal, Dion's personal, joint savings) down to the cent. And then I do a quickish 20 - 30 minute update every week, complete with filing. You see, this is where OCD is good.

So while I was watching TV on Thursday, I took all the receipts and made nice neat piles for each credit card account, ready to input into my spreadsheet. It's a very simple system (or so, I think) but you have to do your part too.

And I tackled it this afternoon.

Now I know exactly what is in each account and exactly what we will be spending on holiday. Of course, if there's a gorgeous bag, watch or wallet, there's always my savings account to fall back on!

Oh by the way, I am releasing a Financial Freedom e-course/ book during May. If you want to be notified about it, please join my mailing list. It's the box in the top right corner. When it's ready, you'll be the first to know. And my subscribers will get a discount for the first week.

Go visit 5 minutes for mom for more great tackles.

How I organise my wallet

This is how I organise my wallet.

On the left I keep my cash/ debit cards – one is my personal bank account and the other is the business bank account.

The middle section has all my benefit cards from the stores – you can see Ster-Kinekor and Clicks sticking out. I also have my Fanatics card from Exclusive Books and in the pocket underneath, there's an Edgars cash card, Dischem and Mr Price Home.

On the right, my driver's licence is in the see-through sleeve. And then my 3 credit cards, each for a different purpose – one for groceries, one for any other household stuff that's not groceries and one for general spending. Now just before you jump to any conclusions, I use these as debit cards as I never buy on credit.

You can see I have a pen clipped there too – it fits perfectly.

Then the pockets...

• The cash goes in the first one.
• Any gift vouchers go in the zippered section – Clicks, Exclusive Books, etc.
• And right at the back I keep my receipts until my weekly Budgeting Update day when they get removed.
  

The coins go in the zippered ouch at the back and my business cards go in the flap behind that. (If I get any other business cards while out, they go in my diary and then straight into Outlook).

Hope this helped you.

How do you organise your wallet?