2010 January | Million Dollar Journey

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3 Ways Being Organized Can Save You Money

Written by Kathryn on Jan 19, 2010 filed under Saving Strategies

I was not born organized. It doesn’t come naturally to me. Over time, I’ve had to learn systems to get and stay organized. I’ve read lots of books on the subject and work very hard at staying organized. There are still times when being disorganized has had a financial cost. Now, being organized is even more motivating to me, knowing it can save me time and money.

Make a menu

Do you ever get home from work at the end of the day, open the fridge and wonder, “What should I make for dinner tonight?” When the options seems unappealing or unappetizing or the ingredients aren’t all there, you’re left with a number of choices

Go out to eat.
Pick up some groceries.
Get creative with the ingredients you have.
Order in.

I find the most difficult part about making dinner is choosing what to have. If someone else would make the decision and have everything already there, the actual cooking would be the easy part. When I sit down and make a menu and a corresponding grocery list once a week, I’m making all of those choices at once. It removes the stress of choosing what to make for dinner when I know I have the ingredients I need. I also saves a lot of money if you can avoid eating out or ordering in on a regular basis.

Know what you own and know what you need

This gets even more complicated once you have children. Two years back I found a pair of rubber boots on sale in the next size up for my son. I bought them, brought them home, took them down to the boot storage area in the basement and low and behold found the same boots already down there! Now I keep a ‘needs list’ in my wallet so when I find a sale, I can refer to it and know what we already own. It doesn’t matter how big of a sale it was, we don’t need two pairs of rubber boots in the same size.

Have a filing system

Recently we found out we were being reviewed by the CRA and needed to send in a record of all of our charitable donations and tuition statements. Fortunately, I knew where to look. I went into the file marked “taxes 2008”, found the statements I needed and mailed them off within the hour. Without my trusty filing system, I may not have been able to find everything I needed which would have resulted in a an extremely costly re-assessment of our taxes.

Keep all of your receipts and tax records going back six years. Have a file for warranties, manuals and investments. When you need something, you’ll know exactly where it is.

Of of the most common New Year’s resolutions after losing weight and exercising more is the desire to get organized. Knowing that getting organized can help save you money makes it even more motivating.

Recommended Books

If you’re on the disorganized side and are looking to get more organized these books are a great place to start. If you want to be frugal you can order them through your local library. These resources are for people who didn’t inherit the organizational gene. If you’re already pretty organized, they probably won’t do you much good. If you need some help, these are a great start.

Books on Getting Organized at Work

One Year to an Organized Work Life: From Your Desk to Your Deadlines, the Week-by-Week Guide to Eliminating Office Stress for Good (link)
Getting Things Done (link)

Getting Organized at Home

Real Simple: Cleaning: Your Room-by-Room Guide to a Beautiful House (link)
ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life (link)

Organizing Your Finances

The Motley Fool Personal Finance Workbook: A Foolproof Guide to Organizing Your Cash and Building Wealth (link)
One Year to an Organized Financial Life: From Your Bills to Your Bank Account, Your Home to Your Retirement, the Week-by-Week Guide to Achieving Financial Peace of Mind (link)

How has being organized saved you money?

Kathryn has been a staff writer for MDJ since January 2009. During the day she works in an office. In her off hours, she volunteers as a financial coach helping ordinary Canadians with the basics of money management. Kathryn, along with her husband and two children live in Ontario.

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Comments: 22

Carnival of Personal Finance – Support Haiti Edition

Written by FrugalTrader on Jan 18, 2010 filed under Interesting Links

Welcome to the newest edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance. For those of you who have never read a Carnival post before, it’s where numerous personal finance blogs submit a recent post, and a host site puts it all together. It’s been a while since MDJ has hosted and there seems to be quite a few new virtual faces in the money blog world.

As most of you already know, there has been global support for the Haiti earthquake relief with millions of dollars pouring in to aid the crisis. Late last week, MDJ offered to match reader donations up to $500. The response was overwhelming with the $500 limit reached within a few hours of posting. I stopped counting after the $2,000 mark! If you want to support Haiti relief efforts, but don’t know where to give, check out our Haiti Earthquake relief article.

Moving on to the Carnival, I have listed my top 5 favorite posts during this carnival with the remaining separated by category.

Editors Picks

10 Frugal Ways to get Fit this Winter @ Squawkfox – Another great post by Kerry listing some effective but inexpensive ways to exercise during the cold winter months. Comes complete with pictures!
The 7 Deadly Sins of Personal Finance @ Gen Y Wealth – A short but entertaining post indicating the various pitfalls of personal finance.
Your Financial Hierarchy of Needs @ Balance Junkie – A picture is worth a 1000 words. The pyramid in the article represents the hierarchy of financial needs. We’re getting closer to the “Esteem” step, where are you?
Why crazy people rule the market, and how you can profit from it @ Pop Economics – I think it was the picture in this article that caught my eye. Some great tips in this article on how to profitably invest in the market.
Blueprint For How To Make Money With A Blog: Income Generators, Optimizing Your Site And Helpful Site Tools @ Bible Money Matters – I don’t often write about blogging and making money online as often as I should. With emails about blogging coming in often, this article sums up things nicely. Check out the article if you’re interested in starting in the business of blogging.

Saving and Frugality

Some great money saving articles were submitted in this Carnival. Frugality is the name of the game! Besides these articles, here are some more ways to save money.

Eating Your Way Into Debt @ The Frugal Rebel

My Store-Brand vs. Name-Brand Blind Taste-Test Experiment @ Len Penzo dot Com

Free Advice: Worth What You Pay for It? @ CBC from InsureBlog

Five Ways to Save Big @ Free Money Finance

Free is to Frugal as Clear is to Water @ The Sun’s Financial Diary

5 Quick and Practical Ways to Improve your Finances – Automatic Saving, Education, Refinancing to Tax Planning @ saving to invest

10 Simple Ways to Save without Cutting Coupons @ Simple Financial Lifestyle

Save Money On Your Heating Bills @ Single Guy Money

How-to Save Some Serious Money in 2010 & Going Forward @ Studenomics

Investing and Finance

After saving your money, what are you going to do with it? One option is to invest it! If you are a passive investor, here is a simple low cost ETF portfolio. Like to invest for income? Here are some Canadian dividend stocks.

2012: End of the World? Or the end of your target-date fund? (Part 3/3) @ Tonka Beans Blog

Insufficient Sample Size @ The Oblivious Investor

5 Dividend Stocks Trading Below Fair Value @ Dividends Value

Think Twice Before Doing a Roth Conversion if Using Account Assets to Cover Taxes @ Generation X Finance

Business Development Companies – Excellent Overlooked Investment Strategy @ Darwin’s Finance

The S&P500 DIvidend Aristocrats @ Bargaineering

Headline Risk In Investing @ Don’t Quit Your Day Job

Investing For Beginners: Basic Steps To Start Investing @ The Digerati Life

Global Asset Allocation Confusion @ Modern Gal

Personal Finance Bloggers to Watch in 2010 @ Narrow Bridge Adventures

How to File Your Annual Tax Returns Online @ Doughroller

Money Management and Budgeting

One of my favorite personal finance tips is to write it down. That is, write down what you spend for a month, and you’ll be surprised at what you can cut out without feeling any pain.

Is mystery shopping worth the time? @ Musings of an Abstract Aucklander

Stop Telling Me You’re Broke @ Moneymonk

9 Sneaky Expenses That Eat Away At Your Income @ Get Rich Slowly

Mortgage Escrow Accounts-The What, Whys, Where’s and Do I Haveta’s @ The Millionaire Nurse Blog

Personal Financial Statements shouldn’t be Top Secret. @ Budgets Are Sexy

How to Fake a Direct Deposit and Avoid Bank Fees @ Realm of Prosperity

Impressing Your Friends Can Cost You @ Sweating The Big Stuff

Set It and Forget It, A Mantra for Personal Finance @ M is for Money

16 Gold Nuggets of Budgeting @ living on a budget

Budgeting with Mint: My New BFF @ Downturn Living

Credit and Debt

Writing about credits cards is very common in the pf blog world. MDJ is no exception with many reviews such as top cash back credit cards and top no fee rewards credit cards.

How To Add Something Positive To Your Credit Report @ The Wisdom Journal

What the New Changes in Credit Card Rules Mean for You @ Being Frugal

The New Reward Credit Cards @ Good Financial Cents

Zero Percent Credit Cards, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly @ Stumble Forward

The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, And Disclosure (CARD) Act Of 2009- Effect On Credit Card Holders @ Free From Broke

Is A Credit Card Annual Fee Acceptable? @ The Smarter Wallet

The FCRA, Secret Scores and Why Credit Consumers are Flying Blind–Again @ Personal Finance Analyst

Chase Debit Card Review @ Ask Mr Credit Card

We’re Debt Free. How We Paid off $63,000 in 11 Months. @ FiscalGeek

Make More Money

If you want to make to come out ahead financially, spend less than you earn. It’s as simple as that. However, that doesn’t simply mean to save more money, depending on how you look at it, it can also mean to make more than you spend. Our family financial goal is to keep expenses in check with the purpose of increasing income.

Rental Property Update for Year 2009 @ Growing Money

Buying vs Renting a House @ The Smartest Consumer

Make Money: 2010 Census Take Part Time Work @ Money Help For Christians

Getting Rich: How I Make an Extra $1,000 Every Month Freelancing (and you can too!) @ Personal Finance Ninja

Making Money buying and selling cars @ Christian Financial Help

Passive Income Opportunities @ Passive Income Now