We’ve all heard of taking a “Health Day.” A day set aside whether for doctor and dentist appointments, or just to catch up on some much needed rest. What about a “Financial Health Day?” A full day devoted to all those nagging “to-do” items on our financial list: automating bills, balancing retirement accounts, the out-of-date budget, record keeping, and the list goes on.
This is the perfect time of year to take that day, or maybe two, and untangle all the complexities of finances.
REBALANCING Financial Health day is as good a day as any to rebalance your retirement and other investment accounts. Better yet, see if automatic rebalancing is an option on your account and if so, agree to a rebalancing every three or six months.
FILE CABINETS We all take great care in assuring that we have security freezes on our credit files, which make it nearly impossible for anyone to open new accounts in our name. But does your identity theft prevention strategy fall short because you literally don’t lock the filing cabinet that houses all of your records?
Even if you aren’t worried about thieves getting into your files, consider the children who may live with you. At some point, they will probably become intensely curious about what you make and how much money you have. It’s probably a good idea to share this information with them at some point, but you want to do it on purpose at the right moment with the proper context.
PASSWORDS Where do you store all of your passwords and sign-on credentials? On the back of an old business card? In a little note pad in your wallet? In a notes program on your computer? Financial Health Day is a perfect time to not only update/review/ change all of your credentials, but to move them to a safer place for access. Try password protected cloud storage that can be accessed from your mobile device as well as your laptop. And throw away all of those hand-written notes!
BUDGETS Does your household budget still include the babysitter you no longer employ? Or does it lack the new car payment? Financial Health Day is a perfect time to tune-up that budget to reflect a realistic financial picture of your household on a monthly basis. And then go the next step, and update your savings plan based on the financial picture you want at retirement. Take some time to put reality into your spending so that you can manage your expenditures better.
