Actively manage the financial resources that you have today!

He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.    Luke 16:10-12    NKJV

Make it a point to actively use a spending plan for directing and tracking your expenditures each month.  

A spending plan is a pre-spending written account of all household expenditures for the month.  Creating this plan before the funds are spent introduces self-directed accountability of how, when and where every dollar is that is entrusted to you is spent.  Tracking your actual spending against the plan is a crucial step.  Lessons that you learn from your spending reality will be used in creating future monthly spending plans.  

Don't have a spending plan?  In the spirit of Financial Literacy, there are several options available to help you to rectify this and begin managing to a spending plan with very little effort.  One of these resources is from the site Money Management International.  Take a look at it here:  www.moneymanagement.org/Budgeting-Tools/Budget-Calculators/Budget/How-much-am-I-spending.aspx?RCTAG=FLM

Everything belongs to God and we are stewards of His resources.  We must consistently pass the test of being a good steward of what we have today before we will be entrusted with more.  As the scripture implies, what you’re doing with the money that you have today will be what you would do if you had more.  Be a faithful steward and manage every penny that you have today and get ready because more is on the way!

Carolyn

Get your financial documents organized!

In order to get our finances together we've got to get the related "stuff" together.  This is so important but often overlooked.  In our quest to improve our financial lives, take a close look at your everyday operational practices.  Simple adjustments can make big improvements!

Get control of the paperwork!

There are statements, receipts, and other artifacts that are a part of a healthy personal financial system.  These include bank statements, paycheck stubs, W2‘s, purchase receipts, service invoices, bills, discount coupons and insurance declarations and riders.  Without taking the time to properly manage these items they can easily end up in various hiding places that can make it challenging to be timely in getting bills paid and completing IRS income tax filings. It never fails that at the end of every year when the holiday decorations go up and family starts to arrive, I go off my routine of dealing with mail and placing these documents in their designated places.   If you currently have a system to store and manage these documents, recommit to operate in this system and take this time to get things back in order.  Create new files as needed for additional items that you’ve found should be tracked separately.  A test that I use is if I can’t tell someone where to locate a document it in less than 3 minutes it needs to have a better more identifiable home.

A simple system that I use for my active paper documents is to store them in semi-opaque plastic food storage containers with lids.  I place a visible label inside these containers to note it’s contents and stack these neatly in my home office closet.  The containers are inexpensively sold in multipacks in the kitchen storage section at your favorite department store.  I have active boxes for several categories including unpaid bills, paid bills, bank statements, insurance docs, flex spending receipts, dependent care, tax documents, investment statements and coupons/gift certificates.  At the end of the year I store the full container of docs in gallon size zip-top bags which I label appropriately.  Getting your paper records organized does not have to cost a lot of money!

Don't forget the digital assets.  Review the financial online archive policies and your personal record retention needs.

With each of our financial partners, we have the option to “go green” and eliminate paper.  Many of the statements and receipts that you get today can be delivered to you digitally or available online.  If you take advantage of paperless for any financial documents that you are required to keep you will need to ensure that you have a method to reproduce these docs at will.  This involves knowing how long you should retain the document and compare this to the online and archive retention policy of your financial partner.  If you will need to maintain your health care receipts for 7 years for tax audit reasons but but you can only see your pharmacy receipts for 24 months you will need to develop a plan to mitigate this difference.  If you store your digital receipts on your computer how will you recover this data if your computer hard-drive dies or your computer is stolen?  Make a list of the length of time you are required to maintain key receipts and statements and include on that list how you’re going to make sure that you’re covered.  Fill in the gaps of things that are not stored online for long periods of time by downloading them to your computer and ensuring that you’re backing this data up for safe keeping.  I find that this is a must for my post-tax monthly online brokerage statements.

Let this be a call to action.   Successful individuals tend to be organized and deliberate in their actions.  That's you and me.  Let's GO!! (Get Organized)

Do you see a man who excels in his work?  

He will stand before kings... 

Proverbs 22:29 NKJV

Carolyn

Financial Literacy: Protecting your personal information #finlit

Protecting your personal information can help reduce your risk of identity theft. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), this is best done by employing operational practices that include the following four tactics:   

• Be selective and informed about those that you choose to share your personal information. 
• Store and dispose of your personal information securely especially your Social Security number 
• Ask questions before deciding to share your personal information
• Maintain appropriate security on your computers and other electronic devices.

Before we get into a few more details, let's bring more info about the Federal Trade Commission to light.

Federal Trade Commission

The FTC is a bipartisan federal agency with a unique dual mission to protect consumers and promote competition. The FTC protects consumers by stopping unfair, deceptive or fraudulent practices in the marketplace. They conduct investigations, sue companies and people that violate the law, develop rules to ensure a vibrant marketplace, and educate consumers and businesses about their rights and responsibilities

It benefits consumers by keeping prices low and the quality and choice of goods and services high. By enforcing antitrust laws, the FTC helps ensure that our markets are open and free. The FTC will challenge anticompetitive mergers and business practices that could harm consumers by resulting in higher prices, lower quality, fewer choices, or reduced rates of innovation. 

Protecting your personal information

Be selective and informed about those that you choose to share your personal information. 

Make sure you know who is getting your personal or financial information. Don’t give out personal information on the phone, through the mail or over the Internet unless you’ve initiated the contact or know who you’re dealing with. 

Store and dispose of your personal information 

securely,  especially your Social Security number.

Before you dispose of a computer, get rid of all the personal information it stores. Use a wipe utility program to overwrite the entire hard drive.

Before you dispose of a mobile device, check your owner’s manual, the service provider’s website, or the device manufacturer’s website for information on how to delete information permanently, and how to save or transfer information to a new device. Remove the memory or subscriber identity module (SIM) card from a mobile device. Remove the phone book, lists of calls made and received, voicemails, messages sent and received, organizer folders, web search history, and photos.

Shred receipts, credit offers, credit applications, insurance forms, physician statements, checks, bank statements, expired charge cards, and similar documents when you don’t need them any longer.

Destroy the labels on prescription bottles before you throw them out.

Ask questions before deciding to share your personal 

information.

Before you share information at your workplace, a business, your child's school, or a doctor's office, ask why they need it, how they will safeguard it, and the consequences of not sharing.

Keep a close hold on your Social Security number and ask questions before deciding to share it. Ask if you can use a different kind of identification. If someone asks you to share your SSN or your child’s, ask

• why they need it
• how it will be used
• how they will protect it
• what happens if you don’t share the number

The decision to share is yours. A business may not provide you with a service or benefit if you don’t provide your number. Sometimes you will have to share your number. Your employer and financial institutions need your SSN for wage and tax reporting purposes. A business may ask for your SSN so they can check your credit when you apply for a loan, rent an apartment, or sign up for utility service.

Maintain appropriate security on your computers and 

other electronic devices.

Use security software.

Don’t open files, click on links, or download programs sent by strangers. Opening a file from someone you don’t know could expose your system to a computer virus or spyware that captures your passwords or other information you type.

Keep financial information on your laptop only when necessary. Don’t use an automatic login feature that saves your user name and password, and always log off when you’re finished.

Read the privacy policies.  Yes, they can be long and complex, but they tell you how the site maintains accuracy, access, security, and control of the personal information it collects.  If you don't see privacy policies posted, consider doing  business elsewhere. 

  This is a summary of helpful information available to consumers for our awareness and protection.  Take a look around at www.ftc.gov.

To read the full FTC article on protecting your personal information, get there from here:
http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0272-how-keep-your-personal-information-secure



Learn more, do more!!











Carolyn

Join me at The 4 "T's" Relationship Summit! #hthevents

I'm honored to serve as a guest speaker at The 4 T's Relationship Summit that is sponsored by Healing Thine Hearts Ministry.  The Summit will be held Saturday May 3rd, 2014 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Richardson Texas.













As the name implies, the focus of the summit is relationships.  Whether you are dating, married, dealing with your children or your boss - every successful relationship is built on 4 specific pillars.  These 4 pillars are Time, Talk, Truth and Trust.  By attending this conference and hearing from the 5 guest speakers you will learn the preventative measures of avoiding continuous failed relationships by taking the step-by-step approach to relationship success.

As is customary, I will bring the topic of finances to the discussions.  Think about your key relationships right now… how many of them have finances as a significant component?  If you're honest you will note all of them!  If the relationships are with your children, spouse, best friend or relative,  the concept of money or lack of money plays a role at some point in time in all of our significant relationships.  Understanding the money / relationship elements and getting tools to assist you in maintaining successful connections in good and not so good financial times will prove to be beneficial today and in years to come!

Get more information on the 4 T's Relationship Summit and complete your registration on the Healing Thine Hearts Ministry site.  They have a number of enrichment events for you to consider.  

Thanks for your support.  See you there! 










Carolyn