Mid-year financial resolutions: Cheap Trick Thursday
And, with many businesses treating July 3 as a holiday (because July 4 falls on a weekend) hopefully you'll have a little more free time to chip away at some of those nagging tasks.
Here's a couple of ideas for some mid-year maintenance:
--- Check your credit reports: We've told you that Marylanders can check your credit reports twice a year, from each of the three credit reporting bureaus. With this set up, you could look at one report every two months --- but no worries if you haven't seen any, yet. Just review all three now, and put staggered reminders on your calendar to check one every two months from now on.
--- Start tucking away money for retirement. Have you set up your 401(k) payments? How about setting aside money through automatic withdrawals for an IRA? If it's one of those things you've been meaning to get around to, don't waste any more time.
--- Review your goals: If you made any promises to yourself to save money, take a look at your progress and make adjustments if necessary. Did you plan to brown-bag lunches instead of buying them, but find yourself on the cafeteria line instead? Examine what impediments are preventing you from achieving these goals (i.e. no time in the morning? Can you pack dinner leftovers the night before?) and make sure your expectations are both reasonable and quantifiable. Pledging to bring lunch three times a week can help you get into the habit.
Smart Money magazine also has other easy tips to avoid wasting money by procrastinating ...
... including checking your budget for fat (such as memberships or subscriptions you're not using), planning ahead for gifts and mail to avoid paying overnight shipping charges, forgetting to turn in rebate forms on time and finding the highest interest rates for your savings (via Consumerist).
The article also says you're wasting money by not hunting through your coins to see if you have anything valuable among your pennies and dimes, but I'm not sure about the return-on-investment there. You'd have to learn about the printing imperfections, etc. that make coins collectable. But, I'd say if you have access to a careful child who might enjoy a numismatics hobby, by all means, encourage it.
Any other ideas?
(photo: rdmrtnz/Flickr)
Comments
I completely agree with you, particularly regarding retirement plans:
Do your research on plans and decide what works best for you and, if you choose a Roth, make sure you set enough aside to maximize your 2009 contribution. Also, find out whether your company matches 401k contributions, and how the rules work exactly.
Other advice would be to get around to signing up for store/grocery cards in places you shop frequently but that you've never had the time/ cared to fill out the form before, and also setting up a frequent flier account if you travel.
Any time is also a good time to look through your cable bill, health insurance, and car insurance, to see if you can negotiate a better deal with your current company or switch over to another.
Good luck!
Posted by: emy | June 26, 2009 9:31 AM