How to Spring Clean your Finances and Uncover Your Money Leaks

Written By Sherry Parks

u feel it? When I lived in West vorite season. Mostly because I cause of all the little flowers and art to pop up Even in the cold

I know spring is coming because seems they sing so much more in are some new growing thingsuite as much to me as they a about you, but one of the things at I get urges to clean my house. for sure And it’s always a good wash windows, clean behind s that you don’t use or need hings we don’t always do in our have a huge sense of ow the house smells, looks and I love knowing that I’ve cleaned hat isn’t routine. share some spring-cleaning tips money mindset. p g g house, your finances could use a refresh too!

Wipe Down the Walls – Tally up your Accounts

Often with money, we see things as individual pieces and we don’t quite see the whole picture It’s kind of like the walls in a room, we don’t pay attention to all four of them until we are wiping them down

For our finances, it’s a really good idea to look at the whole room Instead of just noticing your pay stub or the bills that came into your email, why not sit down and tally everything up?

How much debt do you have?

How much savings, including retirement?

Is your income as expected?

Are you missing any bills?

When you stop and look at the big picture, you can see what might need attention and what is on track I highly recommend that you do this exercise at least once per year And spring is the perfect time This process can be enlightening

Wash Windows – Clear up Misconceptions

This one goes hand in hand with number one If you’ve been ignoring your money, you might be looking at things through a cloudy window

I had a client who had his mortgage set up on auto pay and he didn’t realize it For over a year he paid his mortgage and it was drafted from his account. Instead of applying the extra payment to principal, his bank applied it as a regular payment. He ended up paying interest twice each month. And by the time he figured out what was happening, things were so messed up that it took months to get corrected

It doesn’t matter how much or how little money you have, it’s really important to pay attention Sometimes we do things that we believe will improve our finances, and we forget to check on them Examples to look for:

Are your retirement/savings account contributions automatic? Is the correct percentage being applied? If it’s an employer retirement account, is the match showing up in your account?

Has the extra you’ve paid on debt been applied correctly? Are there charges being made that you didn’t authorize? Is a family member using debt in a way you hadn’t anticipated?

These are just two things to check for I couldn’t possibly list them all here The important thing is to make sure you are seeing the truth rather than something distorted by expectation or assumption