Thrifty Thursday - Financial Clutter Clean Up

This week for my Thrifty Thursday post, I'm talking about fixing your financial "clutter".

The more bills you have, the more likely you are to forget to pay a payment, or neglect to keep track of an account. First, you need to make an inventory of all bills that need to be paid each month, and how they are being paid - do they come directly out of your checking account? Do you have the bill automatically charged to a credit card?

After you've got the list created, take a look and see if you can consolidate bills. You may actually end up saving money on interest and account fees this way. If you have an account that's dormant, and it won't affect your credit score, close it. Change as many bills as you can to be automatically deducted or paid in order to cut down on the chance of them being forgotten to be paid, however - don't spread out automatically paid bills if you don't have to. Instead, try to have them all paid on the same credit card or checking account. This will also help you see exactly how much money is going out on bills each month, which could help you create a budget or deal with a job loss.

If you have multiple accounts at multiple banks, consider switching to just one bank. Again, it's less paperwork, and it also cuts down on the possibility of identity theft. Just remember to follow up and make sure that any automatic payments or deductions have been changed to the new account!

Speaking of identity theft, consider switching completely to e-statements for all accounts and bills. Use an email account that is ONLY for financial accounts, and be sure to use a strong password to the email that is changed often. Don't print out anything you don't need to.

Do you have multiple 401K accounts? See if you can consolidate those as well. Again, less paperwork to keep track of - and it may actually help you in the end!