Debt Assistance Guru

photo credit: SqueakyMarmot

When you’re struggling with debt and are looking for a way out of spending so much of your monthly income on debt repayments it’s quite likely that your mind will turn to the various professional debt assistance services available these days including debt consolidation loans and debt reduction programs.

At first glance these may seem like very similar services and indeed many debt elimination companies offer both services at the same time – indeed sometimes more than just these two – and so telling them apart and deciding which is the best option for your situation can be something of a challenge.

Debt consolidation loans essentially allow you to take out an additional loan which you can then use to repay your existing debts. This leaves you with just one single debt repayment to make each month rather than a host of old debts to keep under control.

Opinion is divided on debt consolidation loans. One the one hand this can be a very useful tool for gaining control of your financial future and keeping up to date with your debt repayments whilst reducing your monthly outgoings.

On the other hand the additional interest charged by debt consolidation companies will often mean that by the time you have finished paying off the loan you will have paid back considerably more than if you had just paid your original debts.

Of course for many people this is less important than gaining control of your finances so you can start to live a normal life again rather than worrying all the time about meeting your financial obligations.

Debt reduction schemes are rather different in that you authorize another company on your behalf to negotiate with your creditors for you. This means you no longer have to deal with any nasty letters of phone calls about overdue debts and have a professional on your side. These debt reduction experts negotiate to reduce the overall debt you have and create an affordable agreement with each of your creditors.

The upside of debt reduction services is that your debt should actually go down rather than up when using these services though you also need to be aware that these services have the potential to significantly affect your credit rating while a debt consolidation loan is far less likely to have this overall effect.

So now you understand the differences between these two forms of debt assistance it’s just a matter of working out which solution is likely to work best for you.

photo credit: Ed Yourdon

They say that disagreements over money cause more relationship break-ups than any other factor. Money can be a touchy subject for so many reasons; whether that’s because two partners in a relationship value money differently, earn different amounts, like to budget in different ways or have different spending habits. The possibilities for conflict are many and varied.

However one of the most serious financial situations for a couple to get into involves the issue of serious debt. I don’t just mean a few hundred dollars on a credit card but rather when the debt situation starts to damage the relationship you have with your partner. When it is causing arguments and leading to unnecessary stress in an otherwise enjoyable and rewarding relationship.

Having had a similar experience myself in the past I thought that a few pointers on dealing with debt problems with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife might come in useful for some regular readers.

Understand The Problem

The first step in dealing with debt problems as a couple is laying your cards on the table. Be honest with each other about the problem. Pull out the bills. Run the figures. Get a good grasp of how serious the situation is so you both know exactly what is going on and neither of you is with-holding information.

This first step is almost certainly the hardest and most painful and you both need to work together, openly and honestly, without name-calling or blame, in order to both really clear the air and understand your situation.

Understand The Cause

Once you know how serious your debt problems are, what you owe and to whom the next step is to examine the causes of this debt. Perhaps you just both spend more than you earn. Maybe one of you has an obsession with buying a certain product. Maybe they are even gambling debts.

Whatever the situation you need to look long and hard at the situation to try and understand how you have managed to get yourself into this situation in the first place. Only by doing this will you be able to start to understand how you’re going to get back out of debt again and furthermore how you’re going to ensure you don’t slip back into debt in the future.

Try looking at the bills that you owe to see what you bought that lead to them. Discuss why the bills weren’t paid when they first arrived – what else did you spend money on? Credit card bills, bank statements and utility bills can all be used to get a better understanding of your financial situation and where your money has been going while you clocked up debt.

Agree On A Solution To Your Debt Problem

Once you have a deep and honest understanding of your financial situation the next step in the process of becoming debt free is to examine ways you are going to dig yourself back out again.

A good idea seems to be to put some time aside with a piece of paper each and a calculator where you can sit and brainstorm ideas. Be as wild and crazy as you like with your suggestions and once you have a list go through the ideas and discuss them in far more depth.

Both of you must be constructive and positive and willing to make sacrifices to get your financial situation under control so again it is important that you are both in the right frame of mind if this step is going to work properly.

Work Together To Become Debt Free

Once you have a plan that you both agree on to help you get out of debt the final element is working on making the plan a reality together. Consider planning monthly progress meetings where you can see how much progress you have made and agree that you will discuss all major financial transactions like household bills, income and so on regularly so you can both feel certain the plan is being actioned and no secrets are being with held.

photo credit: Sara. Nel

If you’re in debt then it’s entirely possible that the situation is causing you considerable stress and worry. Maybe it’s even making your life a misery – especially if you have got behind on your payments and are finding that your creditors are trying to chase you by phone and mail for money you simply don’t have.

If this is the case then it’s important to understand that to a degree we control how we react to the world around us. Certain situations cause us to be happy, sad, relaxed or stressed. And we have some control over which these are. We can choose to be happy even when things go wrong with a little practise.

The fact is that if you’re in quite a bit of debt (enough to stress you out) then it is going to take you some time to get the situation under control and then pay off that debt so you’re free of such a burden. For many people the process will take some years of effort in order to finally become debt free.

Do you want to feel stressed for the next few years? Because if you’re not careful that is what can happen.

I know: it happened to me once upon a time.

I had a nasty split with an ex-girlfriend of mine which really took the wind out of my sails. Not only was I left renting a property I couldn’t afford on my own but I also was so depressed I stopped paying a lot of bills. The more phone calls and letters I got, the worse I felt until I just didn’t want to be at home any more. I just wanted it all to go away so I could start again. That went on for months.

Eventually I realized that these creditors won’t going to go away. That I would have to pay back the money I owed and that it was going to take some careful negotiation with my creditors followed by a period of very careful money-management to balance all my debt repayments and get myself back on track.

But as it was going to take some time I realized there was no point in getting stressed about the situation; about making myself ill and depressed as a result.

I realized that once I had negotiated payments I could afford with my creditors, it was then only a matter of time until I was debt free. I just had to keep going to work, and sending off those checks, and sooner or later I would be debt free.

Even better, as I managed to pay off one debt after another I was able to roll even more money into repaying those existing debts and so I paid them off faster and faster each month.

If you’re stressed about the amount of debt you have right now it’s important that you take stock of your situation. Negotiate debt repayments that you can afford, set up with your bank so that these repayments are made every month on payday so you know your payments have gone out and then try to get on with enjoying life.

Sure, you won’t be feeling too flush with cash for a while as your debts get paid off but you also don’t have anything much to worry about any more. Your debt payments have become automatic so you don’t need to put any thouhght into them and instead you can start to enjoy life.

We all have a choice, so choose not to get stressed.

photo credit: alancleaver_2000

Few people find saving money enjoyable. After all the very essence of saving money is all about not spending money that you have. Money that you could spending enjoying yourself; going out, buying new clothes or gadgets or just paying less attention to your monthly budget and allowing yourself a few treats from time to time.

When you save money you are deliberately giving up these short term treats – this enjoyable lifestyle – with the hope that it will benefit you more in the future as your money has time to accrue and to generate interest.

And consciously giving up some of the pleasures of life can be tough, which is why I believe so many people struggle to save money. They’d rather go on vacation than put that money into a savings account where it sits there, teasing you, reminding you of all the things you *could* be doing with that money.

But if saving money is a challenge then there is a tip which can make is rather easier – indeed enjoyable – and that is saving for a reason.

Allw me to explain the difference. When you normally save money in your bank account you are really just putting away a sum of money you have decided on. That money is there for a rainy day but until that rainy day arrives that money really has no purpose other than to sit there gathering interest.

However saving for a reason gives you added motivation to save that money. Saving becomes fun because you have a goal you’re working towards and you know that the more you can save, the sooner you will achieve that goal of yours.

For example if you decide you would like to buy your first house you will likely need a deposit for it. Working out the size of mortgage you will likely be offered allows you to estimate the price of the house you can afford and equally what size deposit you will need. Let’s say you decide on a deposit of $20,000.

Now that $20,000 of savings has a meaning to you. A goal. It becomes a tool to help you achieve your dream of buying your first home. Every dollar you put into that account takes you closer to your dream.

Suddenly you *want* to save money. Indeed you want to save as much as possible because the more you save, the sooner you can buy that house you dream of. Saving becomes easy. Indeed it’s easy not to waste your money on a night out or an expensive coffee when you have a goal like this. As they say, “a dog on the hunt doesn’t stop to scratch his fleas”.

So if you’re struggling to save money each month despite your best effort take the time to consider what you’re saving for. Decide on how much money you will need for that goal then break it down into monthly chunks so you can see how long it will take you to save that money and also give you a target to put away at least that mount each month. And remember that every extra dollar you manage to put away will make your dream happen that little bit sooner for you.

photo credit: papalars

Despite that fact that many of us work a similar number of hours day-to-day and week-to-week and that our general living expenses can remain similar throughout much of the year many people still find that they experience “peaks and troughs” in their finances.

A peak might be receiving a bonus at work, having a birthday or selling some unwanted items on eBay where you end up with more money than you normally do in a particular month.

The troughs are far easier to identify. Christmas, with all the spending it involves, the extra power you normally use over winter with the colder weather and darker nights, vacations and months in which it seems half your family have a birthday can all result in there being “too much month left at the end of the money”.

Fortunately there are a number of tricks and techniques you can employ in the hope of smoothing out this financial boom and bust leading to a more sustained, predictable and enjoyable way of managing your money – all while avoiding that sense of dread every time you go to the ATM!

Recognize Expensive Months And Save For Them

Some months are going to be more expensive than others so accept that this is the case and try to put some money aside each month to help you cover these extra expenses. For example even a hundred dollars a month put into a savings account will make life a lot easier when Christmas rolls around or you want to book your summer vacation.

Overpay Bills When You Have The Money

When I have a “peak” month I like to try and overpay my bills. I send extra money to the utility companies, to my credit card company and my cell phone provider. By doing this my accounts get into credit which means future bills will be far smaller.

Of course I could just save the extra money to use on those bills in the future but I choose to overpay for two reasons. Firstly I then know this money is safely on my account rather than being a temptation sitting in my own bank account. Secondly there is something wonderful about receiving an electricity bill or phone bill to find that you’ve actually already paid it thanks to the credit on your account!

Put Money Away Where It Can’t Be Touched

Don’t just try to save money in your normal checking account. It will eventually get eaten through – often without you even realizing that it is happening. Instead get yourself a new savings account into which you place your extra cash so that you know it is safely locked away and won’t disappear without your knowledge.

Start A Piggy Bank For Your Loose Change

This is a fun little tip that my girlfriend and I use. We select a certain coin and every time we have one of those coins in our change from our everyday spending it goes into the piggy bank. You will be surprised just how quickly this money can add up and yet because you’re just getting rid of lose pocket change you barely notice it’s gone. You then have a reservoir of cash waiting for you when you really need it.

Make Saving A Game

Saving money can be a bit like going on a diet because it feels like it takes effort. Because you need to control yourself and even potentially deny yourself certain things. This can make it more of a chore than a pleasure.

If this is you then why not consider changing how you think about saving and actually try to make it into a game? See just how much you can actually save each month and consider having a contest with your partner or friends to see who manages to build up their savings account quickest.

Clear Out Your House

Just as I mentioned selling items of eBay consider clearing out your loft or garage and selling unwanted items from time to time to provide you with extra cash that you can save. Try to do this in plenty of time before your expensive months are upon you so you can carry out the process at your leisure and enjoy it rather than feeling under pressure.

Work Overtime

If your workplace offers overtime, consider taking it whenever it is available. Even if you don’t need the extra cash now it can be saved “for a rainy day” – which, lets be honest, always come sooner than we would like.

photo credit: me and the sysop

Debt has a nasty habit of affecting our personalities. Serious debt problems particularly those which are overdue or which you are struggling to pay have an unfortunate way of causing us to lose sleep, to feel tired or overly sensitive all the time. It can make the postman arriving or the phone ringing a stressful situation.

As humans we naturally try to avoid stressful, confrontational situations and so the most common action when you are in a situation like this is quite simply to stick your head in the hand. Ignore the phone. Throw those brown envelopes in the bin. Try to get on with life though always with that feeling of dread in the back of your mind.

Contrast this with the feeling of paying off a debt once and for all. The feeling of freedom, of control and of feeling like you’ve really achieved something. No longer do your creditors hound you. No longer do they take money from your pay each month. You’re free. You feel a few inches taller and life seems to have more color.

Clearly the smart thing to do, no matter how unpleasant it may be, is to face up to your debt problems. Facing up to them enables you to start taking control of the situation which will make you feel better right away and starts you down the path to financial freedom.

And yet taking that first step to face up to your debts and take control of the situation is a very difficult thing to do; in my opinion one of the hardest of all. Your adrenaline will likely be running. You’ll be red and feel hot and maybe even sick at the thought of opening those letters, facing up to the facts and then trying to work out a solution.

But the sooner you do it, the better you will feel and the better the outcome will be. Ignored debts only get worse and ignored creditors only get more persistent.

Having been in this situation a few times myself over the years I thought it might to be useful to not only tell you that you’re not alone if you feel like this, and to highlight that facing up to your debts is the best (only?) long-term solution, but also to offer a little guidance on taking that first step.

Personally in a really stressful debt situation I like to gather together everything I might need to deal with the situation. I check my bank balance so I know what payments I can afford. I grab the letters from my creditors. I grab my cell phone so I can call them, together with a notepad and pen to make notes. I grab my checkbook and some envelopes. Lastly I grab a drink, throw all of it into a bag and go out into the countryside – somewhere quiet where I won’t be interrupted.

Once you’ve settled yourself down your sole focus should be on dealing with the financial situation and it’s important to make yourself a promise that you won’t go home until it is resolved. It might take you half an hour or it might take you the best part of the day but you need to make yourself this promise if you are to be successful. Today is the day and no excuse is going to change that.

When you feel ready it’s time to commence. There are a number of steps and if you’re really stressed about the situation then simply take it a step at a time and congratulate yourself after each step.

Step one is opening up the envelopes from your creditors. Put the envelopes into your bag and then concentrate on step two which is actually reading the letters to figure out what you owe, to whom, and what they are hoping you will pay.

The final stage is to try to resolve these debts. There are two ways to do this. Either write out a check (if you can afford it), address it and pop a stamp on so it is ready to post off as soon as you find a post box. The other option if you can’t afford to pay what they want is to ring them up and negotiate and we have covered these negotiation tactics elsewhere on the site.

Keep a note of everything you have agreed and then basically get on with your life. Depending on how stressed you may be about the situation this whole process of facing up to your problem and dealing with it may take you quite some time so try not to put yourself under any pressure. Carry out this process on your day off when you have no other responsibilities.

And lastly enjoy the walk home. By now you should have resolved all your issues and will be feeling far more confident about life. It will feel as though a weight has been lifted and you’ll find it easier to relax, to enjoy life and to laugh.

May I take this opportunity to wish you the best of luck and reiterate how the sooner you resolve these issues the better it will be for you and the happier you will feel with life.

photo credit: Jeff Keen

Do you set a monthly budget to control your expenses, pay off debt and ensure there isn’t too much month left at the end of the money? And how does that budget work out, normally?

If you’re like most people you’ll start off with your monthly income and subtract from that fixed costs like your mortgage or rent, utility bills and debt repayments.

Based on what’s left you either divide this up into a weekly spending budget or you make guesses about how much you will spend on transport, food and the more variable costs each month.

The fact is that while budgets are a nice idea – and certainly have a place when it comes to managing your personal finances especially in terms of getting out of debt – creating a decent budget can actually be a far tougher process than it may initially appear.

One of the reasons for this is all the “other” costs we forget about or assume can be covered in our “other” column. We consider food and shelter but forget about buying birthday presents, new toiletries, dinners out, a new dress for a party or new shoes for work and so on.

These “other” expenses are often the things can ruin a perfectly and lovingly created budget turning it more into a general idea than a carefully-designed income/expenses statement to guide your financial decisions.

A good concept therefore when creating a budget is to pay attention to your “fudge factor” – that is how much your estimations and guesses are normally out by. By keeping a note of unexpected costs, and costs that were higher (or lower) than you anticipated you can get a better understanding of your spending habits. And by doing this you can use the information you gather to create a new, more accurate (and more useful) personal budget that will serve as a far better goal for you.

For example if despite your budget the week before payday is always a struggle financially you will be able to examine why that is, and where the money is draining from and hence modify your budget for the following month.

Which makes controlling your money and paying off debt that much easier.

photo credit: AH!Photography

These days if you don’t have a cell phone people tend to look at you a bit strangely. Like you just told them you live in a cave. Like it or not, cell phones are an essential (and to many people necessary) part of everyday life.

But they can also be very expensive if you’re not careful with some people spending far more money than they need to on their monthly bills. As someone who spent a few years working in the cell phone industry I’d like to explaint today some of the ways in which you can save significant sums of money on your cell phone bill.

Go Prepaid

Many of us are on contracts because if you’re a heavy user of your cell phone these can still work out far more cost effective if you are smart with how you use your phone. But one way to control your costs is to consider going prepaid so you know you’ll never spend more than you want. If your contract has expired it is typically very easy to move your phone over to a prepaid plan though some people find the impracticality of having to top up regularly an annoyance.

Change Your Tariff

Take your last three cell phone bills and work out the average number of minutes of calls you make and the number of texts that you send. From this work out the best tariff for you and contact your cell phone provider to try and make the change.

Surprisingly some people can actually save money by increasing their plan rather than reducing it because on a lower plan you may only have a small number of inclusive calls and may pay a premium for any phone call over that limit. Doing some simple math here can really save you some significant money each month.

Understand Your Inclusive Calls

Speak to your cell phone provider to understand firstly how many inclusive calls you get each month but also the fine print on those calls. Many providers exclude certain numbers from these inclusive calls such as premium rate numbers and they may have a limit on how long you can talk for before they start charging you.

As an example, even if I have two hours of calls available with my provider, if I talk for more than an hour on a single call (which can happen with me) they start to charge me on a per-minute basis at minute 61. So check this out so you exactly what is included and what isn’t.

Keep Your Old Phone

Do you have an upgrade due where you can change your phone to the latest model? If so, consider speaking to your cell phone provider about keeping your phone but issuing you with money off instead. Some providers set aside a certain amount of money that they assume it will cost them to provide you with a new phone.

However if you keep your old phone, they get to keep this money and so may give you some of it back. My own cell phone provider gives me $100 each year if I renew my contract but keep my old phone rather than demanding a new one and this is the equivalent of several months of free calls for me.

Threaten To End Your Contract

Cell phone companies are in a competitive business and are desperate to keep you as a customer. If your contract has ended, consider ringing them up to complain that your monthly bills are too high and that you’re considering leaving.

Many of these companies have “customer retenton teams” who are authorized to offer crazy deals to keep you as a customer. On several occasions I have halved my cell phone bill for the next 12 months just by threatening to leave.

Disable The Internet

Unless your plan includes internet access you will likely be charged a premium if you try to access the internet on your phone. Worse, one can sometimes log onto the internet accidentally by pressing the wrong button on your phone. So unless you *need* the internet on your phone, consider disabling it so you won’t accidentially run up extra charges this way.

Text Don’t Talk

Texting is often cheaper and easier than calling your friends so consider relying more on this medium of communication.

Insure Your Cell Phone

Replacing a cell phone can be an expensive business so consider insuring it. Many cell phone companies offer cell phone insurance but you can often find it cheaper elsewhere. Specialist insurers exist who concentrate on cell phones and some bank accounts and household insurance policies cover your cell phone by default. Try ringing your bank and insurance company to see if they cover it for free and if so give them the details they will need to register your handset on their system.

photo credit: laffy4k

Most people will understandably seek out happiness wherever they can. They’d rather have fun, rather be loved, rather do something exciting, than be unpopular, miserable and bored.

One observation that I have made again and again however is that it seems that many of us have some form of mental “scales” in which we try to balance out the bad and the good in life so that overall there is more of the positive than the negative.

Imagine you crash your car and write it off. That’s bad. To try and even up the scales therefore we may try to find some positive in the situation – such as the way we decide we didn’t like our old car anyway – or add something positive onto the scales such as treating ourself to a night out to “make up for it”.

Every time something negative happens, we try to balance it up with something positive.

And I believe this same “balancing act” can have quite extensive effects on our personal finances in all sorts of ways.

Firstly, one of the quickest and most obvious ways to create a positive situation is to buy yourself something nice. Something that brings you comfort. How many times do you hear of someone splitting up with their partner, and then immediately going out and spending money on getting a hair hair cut, new clothes or joining the gym? They’re trying to balance up those scales.

But the problem with using the act of spending money to balance up your scales is that this can quickly start to get very expensive. Worse, debt itself can cause us distress and become a negative. And if your gut reaction to deal with that anguish is to go and spend more money on yourself then you’re risking getting into ever decreasing circles.

Far better is to find something else – something that doesn’t cost money – that will cheer you up. Whether that’s simply spending time with a friend having a good chat, going for a walk in the countryside or taking up a low-cost hobby like painting; the results will likely be far longer term than just buying yourself something new (by default it won’t be “new” for very long) and you will also find it easier to dig yourself out of debt.

However another common area where I see this happiness balancing act is in terms of people with stressful but highly-paid jobs. The long hours and the stress of their jobs can be a real negative. They feel tired. On edge. Struggle to spend enough time with their friends and family. So they try to even up the scales; often by buying nice things.

How many times have you heard the phrases “but I deserve it” or “but I’ve earned it”?

I know one person who has an insanely busy job which really gets them down. So on their days off, they go shopping. They treat themselves to unnecessary purchases because they believe they deserve them after all their hard work.

However of course there is another perspective on the situation here. And that is that if the person I know got a less-stressful job, they’d have less negatives on the scale and so would probably feel far less need to splurge on unnecessary luxuries. They’d probably work shorter hours, enjoy themselves more and, because they don’t need to keep on buying things to make themself feel better, they’d probably be no worse off even if their new job paid less.

So the thinking point for today is this. Try to be more conscious of the money you spend over the next few weeks, paying particular attention to the things you buy that you feel you “deserve”. To many people these purchases don’t feel like luxuries but more essentials so be aware of this.

Try to pay attention to how much money you really spend unnecessarily to balance up issues in other areas of your life and try to either reduce those negatives directly, or find new ways to make yourself feel good without spending money.

By doing so you’ll likely not only be happier, but will also have more money at the end of each month.

photo credit: Casey Serin

Have you ever been in the supermarket queue, waiting to pay, when the person infront of you flips open a wallet or purse the size of a small country? Inside they have dozens of cards for all possible situations. Store cards, discount cards, debit cards and credit cards of all varieties. Sometimes it taken them as long just to find the “right” card as it took the checkout assistant to actually scan the items in the first place.

This is what I refer to as financial clutter. If you have literally dozens of bank accounts, credit card accounts, loans, household bills and more then I think it’s fair to say that you’re making your personal finances far more difficult than necessary.

Of course getting into this situation is surprisingly easy these days with every shop you go into offering you an extra card. Credit card offers come through the post. You set up an extra bill for your satellite TV, or to buy a car, or for your cell phone.

Before you know it you have so many different responsibilities with money going in and out of each one that it can be almost impossible to keep track of them all. How do you know at any one point how much money you owe, and much of the money in your various accounts is your own?

But while getting into this situation is very easy, getting back out of it is rather more difficult. It requires not only a degree of patience and organization but frankly also a thick skin as the process can be rather dull at best.

However reducing your financial clutter is well worth doing as it makes managing your personal finances so much easier; which makes you far less likely to get into any further debt and also makes it much easier to pay off any existing debt because you have a far better idea of what is going on with your money.

The first step to reducing financial clutter is really to figure out what you actually need. Which cards do you rarely, if ever, use? Which accounts do you have but never make use of? Start off by scrapping these, or at least take the cards out of your wallet and put them away somewhere safe.

Store cards and credit cards typically charge ridiculous amounts of interest so I would also suggest you consider getting rid of these to make life easier. At the worst, if you have multiple credit cards, look at moving all your balances over to the card with the lowest interest rate and get rid of the rest.

This should have already cut down on a huge number of different accounts, bills, statements and payments each month meaning that it takes you less time to manage your finances and it is far easier to do.

Another useful step is to ring up all the companies that you make regular payments to – either in terms of debt repayments or in terms of monthly bills – and try to discuss moving your payment date to your payday.

This way you can automatically set up an agreement with your bank to pay all those bills at once, at the beginning of the month, when you get paid; and you’ll then know that everything else left in the account after that first day is yours.

Assuming you reduce down your bank accounts too, you could get away with just a checking account and a savings account. Your wages can go into your checking account, with all your bills going out on the same day from the same account.

You can then budget easily using the balance left in your checking account and if you have any “extra” left at the end of the month you can move this over easily into your savings account to get the higher rate of interest.

Personally I now carry with me just one credit card (for emergencies – not for regular purchases) and two debit cards (a checking account for my personal use, and one for business use). I also have a debit card for my savings account but keep this safely locked away at home.

Apart from this I have very little clutter and have certainly benefited from “stream-lining” and simplifying my finances. Perhaps it’s worth spending some time yourself over the next few weeks in getting rid of your financial clutter. It makes managing your money – and life in general – far easier and more enjoyable.