UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — It’s not just your house or apartment that might need sprucing up this time of year. Your finances can benefit from a spring cleaning, too.
April is National Financial Literacy month, and Penn State financial literacy manager Daad Rizk recommends taking the opportunity to clean out your financial clutter, both electronic and on paper. Rizk will hold a workshop on “What is financial literacy? on the University Park campus on April 22.
Whether or not you’re a student, here are some of her top tips for getting organized.
1. Identify what clutter means to you. If your desk is covered with stacks of paper but you can find what you need when you need it, then it may not be clutter. But if the piles are stressing you out, that’s clutter that needs to be tackled.
2. Collect documents in one place and sort by category. (bills, pay stubs, tax forms, warranties and user manuals, etc.), decide which documents are permanent, which are temporary and which you don’t need at all. If you can get a copy of a document online for free, you don’t need to keep it. Throw out ATM withdrawal receipts, charge card, grocery and miscellaneous receipts once they are reconciled with your monthly statements and budget.
3. Create a financial emergency kit. Keep permanent records in a designated folder that you can get to if the unexpected happens. Permanent records include:
-- Marriage licenses
-- Divorce or separation agreements
-- Birth certificates
-- Death certificates
-- Social Security cards
-- Passport
-- Wills, living wills and advance medical directives
-- Trust and estate documents
-- Powers of attorney
-- Deeds
-- Records of paid mortgages