Thursday, March 19, 2009

Manage Your Money, Manage Your Life - Part 1

Discover card did a personal finance series in partnership with Real Simple magazine. So through the course of the year I will be highlighting some of the lessons shared in the series.

Today's topic: Organizing Your Everyday

The first suggestion for managing your money is getting organized. They suggest saving and organizing your receipts for one area of your life and when you get a grip on that expanding to more categories. The categories they suggest as a breakdown are:
- ATM/Banking
- Business
- Education
- Entertainment
- Grocery
- Home Improvement
- Personal
- Tolls/Gas
- Other (category that you choose)

For me I would start with the Entertainment category, meaning dinners eaten out or ordered in. Because I honestly don't know how much I spend on that but I know it's my biggest expense. I think most people would probably need to start with the ATM category. I think people would probably be surprised at how many trips they make to the ATM machine in a month.

I also think my biggest problem is that I'm not sure how long to hold on to certain receipts. Discover came up with an excellent tipsheet that breaks down what receipts to keep and how long to keep them.

What works for you when it comes to organizing receipts?

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