My plan was for a finance focused February 2024! Let’s see how it went!
- Set up a Trust – This (for me) is a way to both control and protect my assets, as well as ensure ease of access for things in the event of my demise. You can read more about a trust vs a will here, or reach out to your own trusted, local finance manager. I have been meaning to do this for many months and keep shuffling it off into the “to do list” of life, but it is now moving toward completion, and I have done a good inventory of my “valuables” or things I want considered to go to others, in the event of my passing.
- Close old accounts – I did not going to get rid of things like credit card accounts necessarily, but I did a purge of old apps on my phone which might send me auto alerts or “temptations” to get back into them and spend frivolously. I closed the accounts, deleted the apps, and move on, saved money and phone storage space! It was not as annoying as the email unsubscribe process, but just about.
- Email purge – Similar to the above, I went through my email inboxes and did the “unsubscribe” to lists and emails which I don’t want or need.
- This was decidedly not fun. I realize now why I had been mentally putting off doing this for SO long. It took me about an hour total, but it was seriously just me clicking unsubscribe or keep on things till my vision was blurry. I WILL admit, it was worth it when I checked my email the following morning and it was NOT full of endless junk to delete. It felt good and I know it was worth it.
- Increased retirement – This is just well timed, but as I had regularly scheduled to do this anyway, I did increase my retirement contributions during the month of February for the coming year.
- Other – I chose to take a re-look at my budget, finances and current allocations. I did some shifting of things and realized I needed to make some tweaks so I could pay some things off more quickly, thereby saving myself interest in the process.
- I ended up (in just February) paying an ADDITIONAL $2,400 toward a long standing debt. This translates to paying it off over 4-months early. I was able to do so by putting some savings toward it, as well as some tax return money.
- I also adjusted a couple areas of spending/saving, and found I can put another $400 per month toward the same debt, and (all things going smoothly) have it completely paid off by September 2024.
- Bonus add on to this – I cancelled one of my wine club memberships. I know this wasn’t on the list, but I did recognize I had two going, and I decided to stick with supporting my local community rather than subscribing to the second one, which comes to me via mail. I was spending a good $600 per year baseline (with no additional purchases, just the subscription) and I know I ordered intermittently, so saved myself money and calories.
All in all, Finance February was a good month. 10 out of 10 recommend. Will do again.
DreamerSD 