Birds In Hand
 

Before you do anything else, you need to have a handle on where you are now by taking inventory of your existing situation. Financially you need to know what you currently have, and what you’re on the hook for. From there you can move forward toward your goals.

Your personal files are among your most important possessions. Everybody has important documents they must keep in a secure place. To make it easy for you, they should all be organized, stored together in file folders in a safe, convenient location.

These folders should be stored in a file cabinet, file storage box, or fire-resistant safe. Some papers you may want to store in individual file folders are shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1

There are two types of files that you need to keep: Past and pending. Organize your past documents and files by year. Then use pending files described below for current and upcoming items. Keep important documents in labeled folders. Each time you need them you'll know where they are. Clean the files out once a year. Things change and you will not need everything in there forever. However, tax returns and supporting documents should be kept indefinitely.

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