Time Tidbits: Organizing Personal Finances

Are you putting off filing your faxes because you don’t feel organized? Jennifer Ford Berry, author of the best-selling book Organize Now!: A Week-by-Week Guide to Simplify Your Space and Your Life and the new book Organize Now! Your Money, Business & Career: A Week-by-Week Guide to Reach Your Goalss (F+W Media, December 2011) has some tips on getting ahead in your personal finances.

Tax Tips to Give You a Jump Start:
- The most important step you can take to keeping your taxes organized is to first learn what you should and should not be recording. Set up a folder or filing system to save all tax receipts for the current tax year. When it comes time to prepare your taxes pull out this folder and make sure all paperwork is sorted into categories: W2 forms, Deductions, Investments, etc.
- If you use an accountant call to schedule an appointment, by the middle of January is ideal. If you need an accountant ask friend and family for referrals. You can also search by city at www.accountant-finder.com.
- Are you contributing to your child’s college tuition? Look into the 3 ways you can deduct* this: Hope Credit, Lifetime Learning Credit, Tuition and Fees Deduction (*All depend on the year of college and your adjusted growth income).
- Mint.com is a free, online tool that connects all of your financial information: your checking and savings account balances, investment accounts, investments and credit cards -—in one place. The site lays out your finances on one page so you can see your entire financial picture at once. When tax time rolls around, you can quickly and easily generate reports on your business expenses, charitable contributions, and virtually everything else you need to file your taxes.
- It will be a lot less overwhelming to get ready for tax season if you push yourself to eliminate paper throughout the year. Make decisions weekly on what paper must be saved for taxes and what you can purge. Remember 80% of the paper we save we never need again!
- Invest in a receipt scanner that you can use to scan and record receipt deductions throughout the year. NeatReceipts is a good one.
- There are now many phone apps to help you keep your finances and tax information organized, and paper free! Lemon.com can help you get started.
- If you donate time rather than money to an organization you may be able to deduct what is called charitable miles if you drive long distances.