Taxes are done, now time to get rid of the clutter

Now that you have filed your taxes it can be a good time to organize your financial life and cut down on clutter.

Here are some steps to consider:
Deal with tax documents
One question many people have this time of year centers on how long they should retain tax returns. The basic rule is to keep returns, receipts and other relevant records for at least three years.

Pare paper statements
If you're missing something, you usually can retrieve bank, brokerage, credit card and other statements online. It's not a bad idea to retain some annual paper statements, but  once you have the yearly statement in hand, shred prior monthly or quarterly updates.

Develop a system
Half the clutter battle is not shuffling papers around any more than necessary. There are plenty of documents you probably don't need; it might be time to discard some of this paperwork, especially since you can find almost all of it online. Not everything that looks official is all that important.

Heed electronic precautions
Keeping and accessing records in the digital age means using strong, lengthy passwords and changing them often — and using unique passwords for each sensitive online account.
To deal with all those passwords, you might want to make a backup list that a spouse or trusted relative or friend could access in a pinch.

For more information contact Neikirk, Mahoney & Smith at 502-896-2999