3 Ways to Spring Clean Your Finances

Your house isn’t the only thing that needs some spring cleaning. Your finances need some cleaning, too. These are three ways that you can tidy up your finances this spring:

1. Cancel Subscriptions

Start by purging unnecessary subscriptions from your credit cards. Think of all the subscriptions that you have. You have them for TV streaming, audiobooks, podcasts, gaming, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, online exercise classes and even mailed subscription boxes. Are all of these subscriptions necessary? Do you use all of them? The answer to this is likely “no.”

So, you should go through your credit card statements to see all of the subscriptions you’re paying for. Make a list of the ones you’d like to keep and the ones you’d like to toss. Cancel the ones you can toss as soon as possible.

What if this process is overwhelming? In that case, you can download a bill-cutting app. This can track your subscriptions and help you cancel ones that you don’t like anymore. The app may be another service to add to your credit card, but at least it can assist you with cutting down financial “clutter” and saving money.

2. Go Paperless

You have piles and piles of bank statements that you’ve forgotten to toss out. They’re just sitting on your desks and countertops, creating clutter that you’ll swear you’ll deal with later.

Well, later is right now. Toss out all of your old, unnecessary bank statements. Run them through a shredder if you’re worried about your sensitive information being spotted in the trash. After that, you should change your online banking profile so that you finally go paperless.

Why should you go paperless? Going paperless with your bank statements will reduce the amount of clutter in your house. And if that’s not enough motivation to stop those paper statements from coming in, you should know that most banks charge customers monthly fees for printing and mailing physical copies. You’re not just wasting paper — you’re wasting money, too.

3. Make a Budget

Without a budget, your finances can get messy. You might spend beyond your means and put your checking account into overdraft. You might miscalculate how much you have for an upcoming bill payment and bounce a check. At the very least, you might not have enough to cover an urgent expense that shows up out of the blue.

No one wants to deal with an emergency expense when they don’t have enough money in their account. If you’re ever in that position, don’t panic. You can still use a credit card to cover the urgent expense right away. Or you can go to a website like CreditFresh and see whether you’re qualified to apply for a personal loan.

With all of the qualifications, you can fill out and submit your application online. You just might get approved for that personal loan, which you could then use to cover your emergency expense as soon as possible. It can help you recover from this stressful situation.

With the help of a budget, you can get your finances nice and tidy. You can set up clear guidelines for how much you can afford to spend every single month without draining your checking account — or worse, overdrawing your checking account. You can stay on track with upcoming bill payments and avoid bouncing checks.

And you can plan for emergency expenses! Simply add a category for an emergency fund to your budget. Every month, move the allotted funds from that category into a savings account — this will be your new emergency fund.

Your windows and floors aren’t the only things that need spring cleaning this season! Spring cleans your finances, too! You’ll be happy that you put the work in later on.