Spring Clean Your Savings

It’s spring! As we tend to take advantage of the longer days and the warmer weather, we may start a deep cleaning of our home. And, there’s no better time than now to get your financial house in order as well! BPAS and our parent company, Community Bank N.A., have a variety of resources to get you started.

1. Gather what you have.

On a roll? Organize all of your finances! While you’re looking at your day-to-day expenses, why not look at your future financial earnings? Download our Financial Organization worksheet and see how your retirement accounts and long-term savings accounts are doing. It not only gives you a moment to revisit, and possibly, reset your investment strategy, it provides you with some peace of mind.

2. Look for potential opportunities to save.

After reviewing your budget, look for places where you can make changes. Whether it’s cutting out a small expense, renegotiating bills, or selling unnecessary items you have in your apartment or house, little opportunities to spend less and save more can pay off. Take a look at the blog post or calculator for some potential suggestions. Then, get creative and see how you can adjust.

3. Save time, automate it!

Maybe it’s just me, but when I start cleaning, I start day-dreaming of buying an automatic vacuum to get the job done quicker. Full disclosure: I really want Rosie from The Jetsons! While they haven’t invented a full-fledged robot to clean the house yet, I have been able to save time with my financials using some automated features:

• Automatic Deposit and Automatic Bill Pay. While this is the norm nowadays, it doesn’t hurt to review periodically, especially if your income has changed or your bills have increased. If you want to streamline the process a bit more, consider setting up a checking account for the bills where the amount is fairly static. Each pay, I have a portion of my check directed to an account that is used only for the mortgage and car payment. This saves time while separating the fixed vs. variable bills – it’s almost a baby-step into a budget, if you’re not a fan of tracking more frequently.
• Automatic Contribution Increases to your workplace Retirement Plan. Gradually increasing the contribution amount of your Workplace Retirement Account is a great strategy to get you to your retirement savings goals. But, remembering to go into your account annually, or having the motivation to go in and change it, might not always be easy. By setting up automatic increases, you’re saving time that the future you will thank you for!
• Automatically Rebalance your Investments. If you’ve established an asset allocation and you’re comfortable with it, save yourself a step in the future. Set up your account for automatic rebalancing to occur 1, 2 or 4 times a year and let the computer do the work!

Spring cleaning your finances may have you sweeping away some unnecessary expenses and putting the finishing touches on some short and long-term financial goals. Take a look at how you can keep your financial house in order this season!