Financial Organization Pt 3: The Binders

Ahh... The Binders 

These are my transition points from my filing cabinets and between my once cluttered mail station. 

I now keep my weekly bills (necessary for tax purposes for our home office) in my financial organizer. 

When the organizer is full

 (after about 4 months it's fairly bursting)

 I transition my bills to my Binders. 

At one point, I had only one binder, but it soon was bursting at the seams as well.

 I had so many categories and so much to put in. 

Supplies:

   3" binders

Page/protector

 Dividers 

I originally used the white binder for everything financial. I prefer binders with pockets so I can shove unsorted bills, letters, etc. in there for later 

Dividers I also prefer with pockets for the same reason but without works just fine. Even though I repurposed, if you care about ease of reading your divider tabs, I would recommend purchasing all of them at once and getting them larger than the page protectors if possible. Ones with pockets are usually larger than the cheaper ones without. 

Now....How do I separate and categorize these binders? 

 White Binder: Financial Binder 
My categories are
Banking Info (statements, account information, etc) 
Cars (maintenance receipts, purchase records, insurance)
Financial Peace Documents (budgeting items, sheets, debt notes) 
Credit Cards
Utilities
School Loans

All these items I rotate out every year these items and put them in their proper folders in our filing cabinet. I always defer to Clay about how long we keep these files on hand.

Pink Binder: Personal Binder 

My categories are

Personal: Any separate entity information, such as personal accounts that will be helpful (forgive the morbidity and God forbid) if anything should happen to either myself or Clay. This category was inspired by my mother's passing and seeing how her organization greatly assisted us in taking care of her personal accounts; accessing emails, where she had banking accounts, etc. 

Dogs: All three pups' vet information, adoption papers, and other things they need 

House Information: receipts of our house updates, etc. 

Medical: Lab results, bills, etc. 

Debt Payoff Letters: these are so satisfactory to keep. I keep such a special notes as a constant reminder of debts paid in full. 

Pay stubs

Reimbursement receipt (for our over the counter purchases)

Donations (such as to our church, Goodwill, etc) 

                                                        Pocket Protectors:                         

Every company has its own pocket protector. A year's worth of bills stacked on top of each other fit with little wiggling into one pocket protector.  

I tried them in separate folders hole punched to fit in the binder but, everything just fits so much more snuggly in the pocket protectors and the transparency helps when searching for specific companies or bills. 

 I hope this all has been hopeful! All these tools have helped a great deal for me to keep a previously messy stack of papers into something easily navigated and accessible. 

Thank you!

Financial Organization Pt 2: Oh, Pretty Organizers!

Oh no! My trusty White Board and calendar are packed away, waiting for a move to our new house (whenever THAT may be) I need ways to keep track of bills, debt. If I don't, I will get so caught up in projects and day to day life, I forget what day it is. What do I do? 

Never fear! Remember, you have your planner in your purse. Remember on your best days you like to color code events anyway, just use your planner as your wall calendar and add the bill schedule to it. (Yes, I'm one of those people!) ***

Here's the planner I purchased in July at Wal-Mart. 
It's small enough to fit in my purse (always great for making appointments on the go), but because it is landscape styled, I can write multiple event on the actual days. I need the visual (usually coded with more color variety than you see here) of events in those neat little blocks. On the other page are three lists, such as Do, Call (shiver) and Buy.  Most helpful.

The brown pen marks? Those represent the monthly bills schedule. Most are listed on the calendar a couple of days before they are actually due so I will hopefully remember to schedule them before their due date. 
For example, On the 30th, I have written "Schedule 1st Bills" to remind myself that hey, bills are due on the first! Just because you can't see the first doesn't mean bills are not due! 

A couple of down-sides to a planner only VS planner and wall calendar...
1- I don't remember to ask Clay for his work schedule so I have found myself at a loss when making dinner (when I do...haha) for when he will be home. inevitable I think, oh, he'll be off at 6, but he arrives home at 5:30 instead, or sometimes dinner is cold because he gets home at 7 instead. Whoops. 
2- Plans with family and or friends can be a little more complicated to keep track of. Used to be we would write it on the calendar for both of us to see, plain as day. This just means we have to communicate more...Ok, maybe not that bad of a down-side after all. 

When I bought our calendar last year, I couldn't find one with pockets in which to store our monthly bill stubs. What could I do? They piled up on our mail center and it was getting a bit ridiculous. I need to keep utility stubs for tax purposes because we claim our home office. Hmm. 
In August, I was at Dollar General and found this sweet thing for $3

Hmmm.... not only a ledger but, oh look! Pockets!! 

My excitement was just a little bit silly, I admit, but it really has helped me fill in our financial organizational dividend. I write it all in pencil too, so it can be updated.
There are columns for due date, the bills, the amount, and the ever-important paid check-marking space! 
Extra spots to check mark? 

CHECK! 


I began using this organizer immediately to store all those stubs. I continue to use this even after my White Board comes back. Especially to keep the bills organized. 

Yes, dear organizer...you shall be used until you fall apart. Being from Dollar General, I hope this is much much later in the future than one would expect. 

Tother day I removed the stubs from August through December and put them in 

THE BINDERS 

What are these you ask? Why next posting I shall show you. :) 

***Yes, I do have a smart phone and realize that there is an app for that. The calendar and reminders can exponentially help some people with everything I've shared here. However, as a visual/hands on learner, I very much prefer, and remember photographically when I write down events on a paper calendar. 

Financial Organization Pt 1 The Whiteboard of Debt

When I write, I am the closest to being 100% transparent as you may ever get to see me. I may seem an open book but, once I get comfortable with you, you will discover how much I keep to my chest. This is due in part to how I was raised but for the most part it is just how I'm wired. 
Some of what I have kept close to me is how extremely overwhelmed, exhausted, frustrated, and drowning in debt I was when I met and married my dear husband. 

Extremely good with money for most of my life, I encountered my first debt with Student Loans 

and shortly thereafter from an abusive ex boyfriend who stole my identify through manipulations, etc..

My debt was, and still, 

is a source of embarrassment, 

stress, and shame I deal with

 nearly every day. 

Even though Clay (my hubby) knew the amount in numbers, (THAT was an interesting conversation) it never dawned on him how very burdensome and debilitating the sheer volume of my debts, combined with his relatively few, would be on our marriage.
*my records are currently packed away in the myriad of boxes stacked in our garage, waiting to be moved to our new home...whenever that may happen. My debt guestimates are low-balled and very generalized at this point 

In January 2013, Clay and I helped save our marriage in the long run by making a debt-changing decision to go through Financial Peace University. It gave us the necessary tools to further free ourselves. When we calculated the whole, ugly, grand total of our debts, we both wanted to vomit. By then we had already paid down a good amount of debt (Over $20,000) in our first year and a half of marriage. (Hint, our combined debt at that point was $118,800...not including mortgage) 

I am a naturally organized person. I loved printing up our monthly budget but the ink and four or so pages used to do so seemed a bit much. So, I sought out a nice dry erase board. I used sharpies and a ruler to draw lines. I had to do the board a couple of times to get it right for us to use. I created a reusable way to keep track of our monthly budget and debt snowball progress. As much as I originally hated the idea (being so private a person) 
      I hung it in our kitchen. For anyone who came by to see. 
I have had a handful of people actually ask me to send them a pic of how I did the board. I keep forgetting....honestly because I never wrote myself post-it notes about it. So here it is!

The Whiteboard of Debt 

We based the pay period on Clay's income. Unfortunately, I do not contribute as much financially, Plus, I get paid weekly or sometimes more often depending on Mary Kay sales. (Which goes into irregular income category and goes towards paying off the credit card used to purchase inventory) 
Anyone who has gone through Financial Peace will recognize the idea. 
We do not religiously follow FPU, my free spirit was going a bit stir-crazy when I made him sit down and follow procedures. I make a budget, then ask if he approves. It works so much better this way; he has input and I defer to him already. Plus, the more he knew things were planned out, the more he wanted to rebel. It's who he is, Mr. Rule Breaker. So, I have learned to relax more; we both go nuts if we won't have spending money, etc. 
The point of this was to personalize it for what works for us. 

By every debt name I have written the due date. I also write them on the calendar before their actual due-date so that I remember to schedule them. 

We do not do a running total when calculating up our budget (which is usually done on a separate sheet of paper,
versus the sheets and sheets printed up that we did before) If the budgeted amount was paid, I put a check mark in the paid column. If the paid amount different from the budgeted, I write the amount I paid and use it to keep track next month. Really comes in handy to see the difference month to month for utilities, groceries, etc.  

The two budgeted and paid columns show which pay period the payment is taken out of.

The most difficult to work out if you do not use cash for groceries. One of my original board options was a box for how much was left, how much I'd spent already... yeah. A lot of erasing on a dry erase board. Stinks.
As much as I would prefer the envelope system for most things, I only use it for spending money and, if I'm being good, for groceries. For a while I was putting gas money on Kroger gift cards because we only ever got gas there. But it became stressful if we were on a road trip and not near a Kroger! 

Benefits of the White Board 

Obviously the monthly tracking helps. But if you're like me and really like check-marks, it's rather satisfying to pay bills! 

     This really helped my feel the weight of money decisions very similarly to the budget sheets. But, it's there for me and my hubby to see every day. Not tucked away like our budget sheets were. Not quite as easy to forget. It helps keep him and me accountable with where we are financially. We both have a tendency to say (for example) , "Oh, we're doing fine! Let's go out to eat three times this week." When, actually, uh...we're not budgeted for more than once a week.

     

     For long-term-  

Meet the Debt Snowball Columns 

As you can see, I have listed ALL our debts beyond monthly needs/bills. This is for our car, student loans and credit cards. 

This is by far the emotionally invested side of the board. 

Every year, (usually around tax-time) to keep track of our progress and feel we are not just treading water but making progress, I calculate our total debt. I compare the Total Payoff column to what the total payoff now. I do this with and without school loans. I calculate how much we have paid off in the previous year.  

As you can see from 2013, we paid off $10,550 in debt.  

I then update the Total Payoff Column and do the same thing next time I feel discouraged and need to see how far we have come. 

Like this 

I did this today; and I am overwhelmed in a good and bad way. 

In 2014, God was faithful and provided us the opportunity to pay off $20,187 in debt. 

In 6 years, (since signing my last loan) my student loans have gone from over $110,000 (yes, you read that right...total cost of original loans) to $65,284. 

Our total debt left is finally under 100,000.        

           $95,991 WITH Student Loans!!

Why do I share this? It's freaking exciting to finally reach this point. 

Organizing finances takes a deal of time, this is true. Drawing and redrawing the White Board of Debt takes a bit of time to start out. Perfectionistic me, I think it was at least a half hour each try. 

Up keep after budgeting was, like 10 minutes though, if that. And saves on paper and ink! 

But, after boxing up the White Board of Debt for house showings (yet another way we hope to reduce debt; move to a cheaper house, lower mortgage, pay off more debt. Woot!) what do I do to keep organized? Glad you asked! I'll show you in my next posting :)