Organize Your Money!
Organization is the key to a balanced life! Organization saves you time, energy, frustration, and confusion. To be organized means to be efficient in the way separate elements are arranged into a consistent structure. In other words, everything has its place, find the place, and when you’re done put it back. In all my years of counseling people in the area of personal finances, one of the biggest issues that cause money woes is the lack of organization.
When you are not organized life feels chaotic, excruciating, and out of control. You can actually feel your sanity slipping away. But like everything else in life — you need to admit that you have organization issues, and that you want to change. Next, you need to make a commitment to get organized, and get your life in order. Then come up with a plan. If you’re too overwhelmed to get started, have a friend or a professional help you get organized. Your life and financial future depends on it.
Organize your time – Use a calendar, palm pilot, or organizer to manage your time. Think of your time as money. When you waste your time you are throwing away money, so plan and schedule your time.
Organize your files – Start a paper filing system. Get manila folders to organize statements, bills, letters, and other important papers. If it’s important it should have a place to go.
Track your money – Know exactly how much money comes in and out of your household each month and year. Whether it’s regular salaries, bonuses, part-time, or business income keep track. What are you spending your hard-earned money on? Track all your outgoing expenses for 30 days by keeping receipts and writing down expenses. Put the receipts in an envelope and label it by the month. Categorize your receipts and add each category up to get a total. This will give you a good idea how you use your money each month.
Pay your bills on time – Keep all your bills in one place, separate bills by due dates, come up with 2-3 days of the month to write out and mail bills, and pay bills 4-5 days before due date.
Automate your savings/investments – Organize your time and money by having a certain amount taken out each month, and put the amount in certain savings/investment accounts. This accomplishes three things: a) eliminates time on your part, b) you don’t have to see, feel, or touch the money, and c) you are being consistent in saving.
File your taxes – If your files are organized it will make it easier when tax time comes around to get your numbers together. You won’t have to be scatter-brained trying to find old tax forms, pay-stubs, or documents. Every document will have a place.
Organizing your life will help grow your money. Organizing cuts down on duplicating inventory, supplies, clothes, products, food, information, and time! Do you want more money? Start getting organized!
sharman_lawson@bellsouth.net
Author’s URL: http://www.sharmanlawson.com
Sharman Lawson is a debt, money, personal finance coach, writer, and trainer. She is also the author of 12 Steps to Eliminate Debt Forever. Sharman Lawson and her husband paid off all their debt including their mortgage, in less than five years, on a combined income of less than $50,000 a year. Visit Sharman’s website at www.sharmanlawson.com.
Unique Budget Ways to Decorate a Utility Room
Your utility room doesn’t have to be the ugliest room in the house. Turn it into a fun place to be by turning your utility room into the most unique room in the house.
Do you have a hobby?
Some hobbies just don’t seem to fit anywhere in your house. For example, if you love the outdoors you may have collection of gear that could make an interesting theme in your utility room. For example, those fishing poles could be arranged on each side of the door. Paint a string of fish dangling from the tip of each rod. If you need a pattern, search the internet for clip art and print your pattern in the size you need.
Using your hobby to inspire a decorating theme can keep your decorating costs in check. For example, a sewing theme can create almost instant decoration. Sew buttons to curtain tiebacks to create a unique look. Trim the edge of a curtain with buttons and/or ribbons. Line the windowsill with sewing knick-knacks. Trim cupboard doors with flat lace.
If you haven’t had time to develop a hobby, you capture some inspiration from other interests that you have. Are you an avid reader? Have you clung to all your childhood books? Create a book montage by using plate hangers for support. Don’t want to put your books in the laundry room? Scan the covers or your favorite pages into your computer as high-resolution JPG files. If you don’t have a color laser printer, take your disk to a photo shop or office printer. Be sure to request a matte or semi-glossy finish.
Mount the prints on foam board. Frames are nice but can be costly. If you can afford it, use a narrow frame—think the white edge on an old photograph. Otherwise, use double-stick tape directly on the foam core. If you have enough prints, create a column from about two feet up from the floor to about two feet down from the ceiling. The effect will be quite dramatic.
Do neighboring rooms have a theme?
You can also keep costs down by carrying the theme from a neighboring room into your utility room. Is the room just off the kitchen? Add a high shelf about 18” down from the ceiling and place interesting kitchen items around the room. Arrange all the oversized pots that you rarely use around the room. Add interest by tucking wire whisks, wooden spoons, napkins and other accents into the handles. Turn a large cast iron skillet up on its side and make a decorative cutout to place inside. Glue a magnet on the cutout to keep it in position. The skillet is ready to use at anytime. Just pop the decoration out. Worried about the skillet falling? Attach a tie to the wall (or shelf) and loop it through the handle.
You can also add interest to the walls by hanging a tool collection creatively. Mount picture frames on the wall and hang different tools inside the framed area. One “picture” could hold different screwdrivers. Another could hold different hammers. Yet another could hold pliers. Add a colored silhouette of each piece within the frame so you know where each tool belongs in the picture. That way you can use parts of your “picture” whenever a little repair job comes up.
These are just a few unique budget friendly ways to decorate your utility room. If you choose a theme based on things you already own, you can keep costs down and have a lot of fun in the process.
Author, Alyssa Davis, is number one design specialist at Metal-Wall-Art.com on decorating a country home with tree wall decor and metal wall sculptures.
3 Ways Your Computer Can Help Turn Your Home Office Green
These days everyone is looking for more ways to clean up the environment. If you have a home office, here are some ideas to help you use your desktop and laptop computers to make your lifestyle greener.
Consider using digital storage instead of printing everything out. You can scan important legal documents and store them on your hard drive instead of keeping multiple hard copies in storage. Even if you work in an industry that requires by law that you keep records for a number of years, you can usually find ways to at least reduce the amount of printouts you do on a regular basis. And at this point, many state and federal laws have been amended to allow digital storage of files that need to be maintained for several years.
There are now many online vendors to choose from who can provide digitally secure storage for your computer’s files. The cost of online storage is usually a lot less than renting an off-site storage unit to fill with boxes and boxes of paper. If you can use digital storage, you can save money, and you can also save a lot of trees.
If you use a fax system regularly, you can save money by switching to an online fax service. You won’t have to waste paper and printer ink on spam faxes or faxes that are incomplete…just delete them from your hard drive. You also won’t miss out on important faxes because of an empty ink cartridge. Not only will you save on paper and printer ink, but you‘ll have an automatic digital copy on your hard drive of every fax you send or receive. And you’ll never have to buy a new fax machine again. Just do an internet search for online fax services and choose the one with a plan that fits your needs.
Another way to reduce using paper is to switch to online banking and billing. Most banks and utility companies today have options for paperless billing. You can receive and pay all of your bills online. In fact, most other services that bill you on a regular basis now have the option for online billing. Cable companies, credit card companies and phone companies all have the resources to eliminate paper bills and make all of your transactions online. By handling all of your bills online, you can save reams of paper and have copies of your transactions automatically stored on your hard drive.
It’s easy to see that the more you use your computer, the greener your office will be. Start with these small steps. Then if you want to get really serious about having a green home office, you can always add solar panels to power your computers.
