Life of E's

Money clutter is something that not many people talk about. Business owners will admit to paper clutter, digital clutter, mental clutter, but they rarely talk about money clutter. It’s time that we did because it can at least as debilitating to your business as the other types of clutter (which you also need to deal with, by the way!).

Here are 7 steps to get you going on dealing with your money clutter, particularly in the area of credit cards.

1. Make a list of all of your credit cards. Put the information in an Excel spread sheet or a Word doc table or any other easy to organize software (or even use paper and pencil!) Just make a list.

2. Note the balance due on each card currently.

3. Note the closing date for each account (not the due date for paying each month’s bill. Note: You can delegate this to your bookkeeper or other assistant if you want, but there is some value in YOU making this list and these determination. It’s your business, right?

4. Put the date that each account closes into your calendar, planner, tickler system, or some other means that lets you know that your account is now ready to be paid. Note: If you have all of your accounts set up to pay automatically electronically and to pay the amount in full each month, then you have nothing to worry about here. This tip is for the person who cannot always pay the full amount each month and so waits to see what is due and how much is in the account before deciding what to pay. This is clutter, by the way.

5. Line up all your cards (on your chart) so that they are organized by the one with the smallest balance at the top and the largest balance at the bottom. These should be easy to do using the sort function in your table or spread sheet.

6. If you have any credit card debt that you are unable to pay off each month, pay the minimum on all of your credit cards (or other loans) – but that’s not all I’m going to say, so keep reading.

7. Pay as much extra on whatever is the smallest card balance so that you can pay that one off. The idea is that if you have 5 or 10 (or more) credit cards, you want to begin paying them off one by one until you have only one or two main credit cards for work and you pay each one of them off completely, each month. Note: When you pay off one of the credit cards from early in your list, stop carrying it. Don’t cancel it, just stop having it available to continue adding to.

When you have reduced your credit card debt to a manageable monthly pay-off, you will have reduced your money clutter significantly.  Test these 7 steps and see what happens for you.

If you want to delve into cleaning up your money clutter – learn more here:  www.CleanUpYourMoneyClutter.com