8 Personal Finance Spring Cleaning Ninja Moves

Ahh…. Spring is in the air. Birds chirping, children frollicking in the park, opening day baseball, tax returns, my dog shedding clumps of hair, non-stop rain, sinus allergies…..focus, G.E., back to the positives…. flowers, ice cream, personal finance domination.




Something about this season always makes me want to de-clutter things, particularly my finances. Here’s a list of the things that I’m doing this Spring (and typically do every Spring) to keep my finances in order. All can be accomplished in an afternoon. It will be time well spent.

financial spring cleaning

1. Shred Old Financial Documents

De-cluttering your finances starts with reducing paper clutter. I’m conservative in keeping tax records going back 7 years and about 1 year on everything else. Beyond that, I have been shredding everything. I recently shredded enough documents to fill 5 paper grocery bags! I’d recommend getting a cross-cutting shredder that shreds 12 or more pieces at the same time and also shreds old plastic cards, like the Amazon Basics Paper Shredder. I personally bought this and it’s rock solid. It even has a slot for CD’s. If you’re throwing this stuff in the trash, un-shredded, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to identity theft and fraud.

2. Check your Free Credit Report and Clean Up Any Discrepancies

AnnualCreditReport.com (the real-deal website, mandated by the federal government) offers you three free credit reports annually. Space them out every 4 months to check for discrepancies and avoid taking any unnecessary credit score hits. If you want more frequent access, Credit Karma now offers free credit report access continuously to your TransUnion credit report!

3. It’s Budget Cleanup Time!

Yes, I know you didn’t want to hear this one, but it’s oh so important. I wrote a pretty comprehensive post that includes a budget spreadsheet that I designed and used personally. Check it out, and see where the holes in the bucket are. Then plug them ASAP.

budgeting




4. Stop Settling for Paltry Interest Rates on Short-Term Cash Holdings

For your emergency savings fund and other short-term cash holdings, you might as well earn best in industry rate yields on your savings. Right now, that is around 1%, but it changes frequently. One reliable online bank that consistently has the highest savings rate yields is CIT Bank. I like their online focus, reputation, and high interest rate yields. CIT is a legit FDIC-insured bank (a division of First-Citizens Bank & Trust, which runs hundreds of branches in 19 states. The CIT division is geared towards online). They have some of the best CD rates I have seen (4.60% on their 18-month CD) as well as a “11-month no penalty CD” if you need to withdraw funds. They also offer attractive online savings, e-checking (with $30/month ATM fee reimbursements), and money market accounts – with no overdraft or maintenance fees

5. Move Long-Term Investment Funds From Savings & Checking Accounts to Investment Accounts

Since interest rates are so low, you might actually be better off moving your cash to an online investment account, and pairing it with credit cards. You can typically get your cash back, if you needed it within days, with ACH withdrawals.

investment funds

I give myself low marks for letting long-term investment funds sit in my bank account. With the market run-up, I missed out on thousands of dollars worth of capital gains because I simply wasn’t keeping up on moving those assets over to investment accounts. Don’t get caught sitting on interest rates of 1% or below and having inflation eat away at it.




6. Consolidate Your Brokerages

Having too many brokerage accounts is a great way to easily lose track of your financial allocations. I’ve found it easiest to consolidate my accounts to 2 brokers. Just make sure you’re staying under SIPC insurance levels per account type.

7. Re-Allocate Investments

Once you have consolidated brokerage accounts, it’s time to do a little re-allocation. With the market having the run that it has had, now would be a great time to go through  your stocks, mutual funds, and other investments and make sure that the asset allocation is re-distributing to the correct portions. This might require moving some money around. In my case, it also means moving my accounts around.

8. Get the Best Debit & Credit Card Rewards

First off, cancel any credit cards you are not paying in full each month. Glad we cleared that up. If you ARE going to effectively use a credit card, make sure it is one that is giving good rewards. I average about 2% cash back on my rewards cards. Check out my money savings products page for more recommendations.

What are you Doing to Spruce Up your Finances this Spring?

10 Comments

  1. Jedrzej Jakubowski
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