Get Organized to Prevent Financial Loss
What type of loss will be the catalyst for you to finally get organized?
Cheryl Vargas, CPO
Will it be misplacing a $500 gift certificate with an unknown expiration date? Paying mounting late fees and surcharges to waiting creditors? Or perhaps you simply repurchase items that you can’t find, doing your part to put further strain on our natural resources.
Yes, there are treasures lost in piles of clutter; things of value hiding in your space that you’ll never find in time or have long since forgotten. Is it possible to control this waste and get back on track, absolutely! And you’re not alone, at one point in my life I experienced my very own catalyst for change, my breaking point.
When my three sons were toddlers their grandmother sent savings bonds for their birthdays and holidays. I’d tuck the bonds away in a drawer, (yes, at one time in my life, I had junk drawers) because I knew I would never cash or use the bonds until they reached the ripe old age of 18 or 21 and went off to college.
Well, guess what….the day finally rolled around to where I needed to find those savings bonds. My youngest was going off to New York for college and needed the bonds to help pay for tuition, books and other expenses. Though I dreaded looking through every box and container I’d hauled with me through several moves, the task was inevitable. And the outcome; to sum it up, I never found all of the savings bonds in time for him to use them for school. THAT was my breaking point.
From that point on and to this day I can identify the location of any family birth certificate, medical record, insurance policy, tax return or product warranty in a mere 5 seconds, ten seconds tops. When I learned to assign a HOME to the things that I clearly valued, the purpose and method of being organized made sense to me.
For the record, my essential family documents are kept in a tab separated binder called, “Family and Identity”. I store gift certificates in the pocket of my wall calendar and mark the coupon’s expiration date on my calendar.
If you’re paying late fees, consider setting up either automatic bill payment or set electronic calendar reminders with upcoming bill due dates (they can be set up to remind you via both phone and email). Being organized acknowledges not only the value of your possessions; it also enhances positive interaction within your family and bolsters self-confidence.
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Tags: family documents, family identity, Get Organized, gift certificates, junk drawers, professional organizer chicago, savings bonds
