Wrapping Up 2009

The last week of the year is always the time when I try to wrap up all the projects that I’ve left unfinished so I can start the New Year fresh. For the financial section of my life it looks something like this…

Clean out financial paperwork. It’s time to go through the documents and papers that have piled up in my “file it later” basket.

• Attack the “I should read this someday” stack. Browse through these and mostly toss into the recycle bin.
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  Make a central location for tax documents. I always keep our tax files organized, but to make it easy for my husband I create a bin where he can just through in necessary documents. I try to make it easy and obvious so he doesn’t have to take extra time to open files or try to remember where I keep things. Just toss it in the bin.
  
• Do a year end budget review. I like to review the year to see if we strayed from our budget and why. This year is easy. We planned an inexpensive camping vacation that turned out not to be so inexpensive. We went overboard. Oh well, we recovered.
  
• Last minute money moves. Hunt around and see if there is any money left for IRA contributions and charitable donations.
  
• Take stock of my accounts. Double check my certificate terms, so that I remember when they mature and can make a plan for them.
  
• Deposit any miscellaneous checks. Sometimes my kids leave checks that they receive for babysitting and birthdays laying idol. This is inflicts pain on the people who have written the checks, but better to get them cleared out. So, I’ll scrounge around and look for the idol checks and get them deposited.
  
• You might think that I’m going to add “Create a 2010 budget” to this housecleaning list, but this year I’ve decided not to think about 2010 until it happens. It will only distract me from cleaning out 2009 to do so.