It's early morning, my eyes popped open and the anxiety starts to set in.  I look at the clock and it’s only 3:00 AM.   Why am I wide awake? I still have a few more hours of sleep. Why do I feel all of this anxiety?  If I clear my mind, I will fall back asleep.  "Think nothing, Think nothing."  I check the clock again and it's 3:45, ughhh....

At this point in my life, I was doing way too much and what I mean by that is I was working a full-time job, working part-time as an adjunct instructor at a community college and I was a single mother trying to be super mom with my kid in 50 million activities (ok, not 50 mil just 1 mil).  Even though my support system was amazing, I was so busy that I was just paying my bills.  I didn't have any idea where I stood financially anywhere, the balance in my bank account and I had not made the extra payments on my current car (as planned) because I was too busy to figure out the how much I need to put aside for taxes from my adjunct job.  In addition to knowing where I stood financially, my room & guest room were a mess and had been that way for a few weeks which was crazy because I don't function well in mess.  If my room is not clean, I can't function.  So I got up at 3:45 AM and cleaned my room.  It really didn't take that long, so picked up my laptop, which was in my bed and started checking my bank account balances and my debt balances.  I stopped checking my balances after the last home repair (I was over it).  When I totaled everything up and saw that my savings balance was now as low as I thought I was, I realized that I needed to work on building it back up and pay down off my debt but I needed to get organized first.  Here are some of the steps I took to get my financial life in order.

Create Time

Did you noticed that I said I was too busy to figure out my tax withholding for my part-time job.  I was busy but I always made time for the things I wanted to do.  All I needed to do was make it a priority.  I guarantee you that I did not miss a single episode of my favor tv shows and I know I had DVR so I didn't even have to watch it when it aired.  So create time and do it while you’re watching your favorite TV show.  Keep in mind that It doesn't have to be in one sitting break it up over the week, assign yourself one task each day.

Create a filing system

Your filing system does not have to be fancy but your documents should be where you can find them.    It can be simple, just start by separating your documents in the following categories: legal and financial documents.  Then separate your financial documents by what you own and what you owe.  

Your legal documents will consist of birth/marriage/adoption/death certificates, passports, any legal documentation from court cases, etc.

Your financial documents for what you own, will include the deed to your home (if paid in full), title to your car, bank account information, retirement plans, taxable mutual funds/stocks, life insurance policies, etc.

Your financial documents for what you owe includes your lease/mortgage, car payments, student loans, credit card debt, personal loans, 401k loans, etc. .  

Set up a Spending Plan

Tell your money where to go so you can achieve your goals.  So if I had not abandoned my spending plan, I would have already started building my depleted saving back up and I probably would not have had anxiety because I would have been taking action.  Being stagnant give me anxiety but taking action makes me feel good and changes the whole game.  If you need help creating a spending plan check out this post.

Technology is your friend

I use the filing system I mentioned above for documents that I cannot get in electronic form.  I have the same system setup on my cloud server (Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft Onedrive, iCloud (if you use Apple products), etc).  

You can also use technology to track your spending plan. If you're an excel person you can use an excel spreadsheet or programs like Mint, Dave Ramsey's Every Dollar, or YNAB.

You can also automate your bill payments.  I don’t automate all of my bills but certain larger bills with a set payment amount, like my student loans, are on auto draft.  For my sanity, I have a separate checking account for the bills on auto draft.  

Lastly, I use technology to automate my savings because I am a natural born spender, so I save before I even see the money.  A few ways to automate your savings by having a percentage or set amount direct deposited from your paycheck to your savings, have an automatic transferred from your checking to your savings on your payday, or you can sign up for Digit transfers a set percentage of your purchase to a FDIC insured bank account or Qapital which rounds up your your purchase by a preset amount like one dollar.

Keep record of all of your usernames and passwords

These days there are 5 thousand passwords out there.  So to make your life easier, you should put all of your passwords in a safe place that's easy to access.  I personally use Evernote because the version I have is password protected but there are a lot of apps you can use to store your password or you can use a password protected excel file (don’t forget the password).  I also advise to using some type a code for your user name so it's not just there ready for someone to take it if they gain access.  So it may say y for username which means yahoo email.  

I hope my tips have been helpful for you.  Once you get organized you will release that overwhelmed feeling you have.  Even if you don't feel like you're in a great position financially, now that you know where you stand you can take action to get where you want to be.  

Do you have financial organization tips to add? Let me know in the comments below.

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