Many of us are in charge of paying the bills, planning the budgets, filing the taxes and more. Have you ever been in a situation where your husband or partner says, “Where are last year’s taxes?” or, “I can’t find my American express bill!” How can you develop a simplified system so you can avoid spending hours paying bills and have more time for yourself?

1. Keep a file of all expenses and keep it in the same place where you can get at it whenever you need it. If you and your significant other don’t share expenses, create two separate files.

2. Consider paying bills online, where you can be constantly reminded of what and when something is due and can avoid late fees.

3. Set up automatic payments for your regular bills like your mortgage to make your life easier.

4. Get rid of clutter. You only need to hold utility bills and credit card statements for a few months. Hold onto your pay stubs until your W-2 arrives and monthly financial statements until you receive your year end statement.

My holiday wish for you is to make life simple and give yourself the best gift anyone can give—the gift of time, joy and peace. Happy Holidays! Lisa

This entry was posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under General Interests, Women Only. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.