Have you ever felt stressed because you knew you had bills due but weren’t sure where the bills were or if you had missed the deadline? Have you ever been charged a late fee? Have you ever spent hours on the phone trying to straighten out a bill payment that was never received? If these sound like common occurrences in your life, I have three words for you: automatic bill pay.
Read more →Let’s assume that you dutifully filed your 2013 taxes in recent months. You’ve got to hold on to your supporting paperwork for three years, since that is how long the federal government has if they decide to audit you. (If that number surprises you, see my earlier post entitled “How Long Should I Keep My Personal Tax Records?”) Most states — including my state, New York — also only have three years to audit you. (You can check your state here.)…
Read more →I was intrigued by a book review in the weekly magazine The Economist, since the book in question delivers the same message that I have been telling my clients: spend your money on experiences, not things. According to “Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending”, by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, behavioral research indicates that the excitement brought on by material purchases wears off quickly. A much better strategy, the review states, is “to spend money on experiences, like interesting trips, unique meals, or even going…
Read more →The last time I wrote about receipts was last year in “Making Sense of Receipts.” In that post, I talked about how to track and analyze your spending, as this was what my clients were saying was the reason why they were accumulating receipts. Since then, I have continued to encounter stacks and stacks of receipts at my clients’ homes, some of them years old. These clients haven’t claimed they were saving them for tracking. They were saving them because they…
Read more →Yesterday I engaged my entire family in cleaning out our entryway closet. We are lucky enough to have walk-in closets — designed by California Closets before we bought the apartment — so it is actually possible to see everything that’s in there. Therefore, I knew we had a few items that we could get rid of. Frankly, I am amazed at how much stuff we are giving away!
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