Do you want to know something shameful? I’m shit at organizing my filing. You know what I mean, all that important stuff like tax documents, insurance policies, and retirement planning that you’re supposed to keep somewhere safe and organized. Since our house sprung a leak last summer, we had to vacate our master bedroom and pack everything up into boxes that were stowed in any spare square foot available. It took a few months for the renovations to be done and we still needed to paint everything and replace light fixtures. By the time we moved back into the master bedroom, any systems I had in place for managing all the finances and paperwork really fell by the wayside. We weren’t very financially organized at all. Check out our current filing system below:
Things just kept piling up and got a little out of control as you can see above. So my goal for May is get everything back in order and set up a new system for dealing with everything. Here are some of the things I will have to do to make that happen:
- File My 2014 Taxes: and get the damage on what I’m going to owe them – because I’m really going to owe them this year. I’ve been putting this off because I know I’m going to owe them and I really don’t want to deal with it. But it’s not like it’s going to go away so here we go…
- Deal with CRA’s Info Request: Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) “reassessed” my tax file from 2013 and decided that I owe them $800. In order to prove otherwise, I have to submit all this supporting documentation that my income/expenses claimed were valid. They’ve “reassessed” me the last four years in a row so it’s been an endless process of form-filling and phone-call making to prove crap that’s already true. Needless to say, I’ve been avoiding it for the past six months. So this needs to be done.
- Organize My Paperwork: While most of my stuff is online now, there are still some things that I need to file. As you can see, my paperwork situation has gotten more than a little out of control. Since these documents are important for a number of reasons (like a Canada Revenue Reassessment), it’s probably best if we can put our hands on them when we need them.
- Update Mint and Track Spending: I signed up for Mint last year and loved it. Then I changed a card on one account, a password on another account, and an account number on a different one. Needless to say, Mint isn’t able to connect with half the things I logged with them. So I’m going to fix that and start tracking our spending more closely.
- Set Aside Time to Talk Money: My husband and I laid all the groundwork for a successful financial life like planning out a budget and tracking expenses in Quicken. The problem was we did all the work once and just left it. When we went back to look at our budget after my husband’s lay-off, we realized that a lot had changed with our budget and we hadn’t updated any of our numbers in months. My husband and I will start meeting once a week to stay on top of our finances and work through any challenges that crop up. Things are stressful enough with adding money surprises at this stage.
So that’s my plan for May. What do you guys think? What do you have planned for May?
