I Love the New Year!

I look at the last week of the year, as a super productive week. There is no work and I can spend time getting ready for 2015. I want to hit the ground running for January 5th (my first day back to work)!
What needs to be take care of…

Donations

If you want to maximize your donations for the 2014 tax year, take one more look through your closets, bookshelves, cabinets, attics, basements and garages to pull anything that needs to be donated. Kids toys and books are always a gold mine of donations.

After the holidays as you integrate your new gifts it’s a good time to review what you already have so you can see where your duplicates, triplicates or otherwise unwanted things are that can be better utilized by others.

My one warning would be that you probably shouldn’t wait until the 31st to drop off because donation drop offs can get pretty insane and sometimes stop accepting.

If you are doing your final online cash donations, get them out of the way as soon as possible. You don’t want to get stuck with slow or crashing websites at the last minute.

Files

This is the best time to go through your 2014 files (I am assuming you have them).

Go through all the 2014 bills pull them out of their files, clip or band them if you are going to need them for your taxes.

If you aren’t going to use them for your taxes you can do what you want with them. Most of my clients shred the department store bills and hold on to some of their utility bills for another year (don’t ask why…I think they just want the security of having them…just in case.

This way you start with clean, empty folders to start putting 2015 into.

If you don’t have a system, this is a great time to start one. All you need is a file drawer or box and some folders.

If you scan your bills and receipts create your new files, the same with emailed bills and receipts.

Hopefully there is something here that you can do to start 2015 with a little more organization in your world.