Do you are your spouse manage all of your financial matters? If so what happens to your personal finances if the other is hospitalized or unexpectedly passes away? Would the non-CFO of the house know what to do to manage the family finances? In my post Financially Prepare your Spouse in order to Simplify I explain what the non-spouse needs to know in order to manage the family finances. Now its time to take it a step further. In order to make it even easier for the non-CFO spouse, you must create a file to explain what needs to be done to manage the family finances. I would label this file Emergency Financial File. This file should be filed with all of your other financial documents or in a location your spouse has access to and can quickly put their hands on it when needed. I would even purchase a red folder so it stands out from all of your other files.

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In order to simplify your personal finances, you must identify your financial ugly ducklings and turn them into financial swans.  What I mean by this is if you want to simplify your financial life so you can manage your finances better you must identify your bad financial habits which I refer to as your ugly ducklings and take action to turn this bad financial habits into a positive financial situation or what I refer to as financial swan.

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Reducing the number of accounts you have is key to simplifying your personal finances as I mention in The Power of 1 can simplify your personal finances.  In addition to reducing the number of account you maintain, you should also have a Are you living a Financially Proactive or Financially Reactive Life? Having a proactive mindset will enable you to handle financial emergencies in a timely and efficient manner.  For example if you lost your credit card or cards do you have a plan in place to have them canceled and replaced in a timely matter as well as remember all of the charges you have automatically charged to your card.  Instead of spending hours trying to remember everything regarding your credit card, why don’t you have a credit card disaster plan in place.   Having this plan in place will help you simplify your personal finances.

Here is this week’s simple financial tip to help you design your credit card disaster plan: Read the rest of this entry »

How can one number simplify your persona finances?  Yes it is true.  One number can help you simplify your personal finances.  This number will make things easier for you and will help you reduce your financial stress.  This number is not a large number.  You are probably thinking yes one very large number can help me simplify my personal finances.  If you read Would winning the lottery simplify your personal finances?, you will know that I do not believe having a large amount of money will simplify your finances.  Let me stop the suspense and tell you.  The number 1 can help you simplify your finances very easily.  Think about it if you only had:

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We all love to use credit cards for their convenience but are you using them to help simplify your personal finances or is your credit card usage making your personal finances more difficult.  For example, we sometimes forget to make that monthly payment or our balance keeps getting larger and larger and we feel overwhelmed.  The only way to stop the bleeding is to stop using the credit card completely.  However, if you use your credit card properly you will not have to stop using the credit instead you can use the credit card to your advantage.  It can even become a valuable tool to use to simplify your personal finances.

Here is what you need to do to make sure you are practicing good credit card usage:

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Warning: If you do not pay off your credit cards off at the end of the month.  Do not attempt this it could be hazardous to your financial health.

Are you looking for a quick and easy way to simplify your personal finances? Are you finding it difficult to establish a budget?  Do you wonder where you money has gone at the end of the month?  Do you wish you could write less checks or carry less cash?  If so, I have a solutions for you.  I call it the two card financial trick.

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