Getting It Done

I started tackling the huge filing and tax project the other day after I got the livingroom cleaned up from the quilting and pillow cover project. I decided to separate everything first and then tackle the little parts instead of getting overwhelmed in the bigness of it all.

I got a lot of the filing done yesterday before I had a few friends over for lunch. I even got most of the year end pulled out and separated into what gets shredded and what just goes in the trash. I am determined this year to do a thorough job of it and really get rid of stuff that we don't need and so far, I am doing well.

Today, I tackled the banking/investments pile. I had to go through the prior year stuff on the investments and retirement accounts because I was keeping everything, and I really don't need to do that. I managed to trim it down quite a bit. Then I started organizing the bank statements. I have been very bad and have not reconciled our main bank statements since the end of February 2007. So I had almost a year of statements to go through and check. Now, probably for most this would be a quick thing to do but I have a method and my method is a bit time consuming.

First, I have to take the statements and check off things in the checkbook as they show up in the statements and then add to the checkbook any dividends that I might not have known about. After I do that, I take the checkbook into the office and input everything from the checkbook into the MSMoney program we use. After I do that from the checkbook, I take the statements and reconcile the MSMoney against it. This is a way for me to triple check the numbers against each other and it keeps me straight on the money.

Needless to say, I managed to reconcile the checking, savings and market saver at our main bank. Tomorrow, I have to do the investments and the small savings accounts we have at two other banks. I am proud of myself for getting this huge hurdle out of the way, even though it was there because I was not doing it all year long like I should have been. I am one step closer to being able to do my taxes soon. I still don't have all my documents in the mail yet but I am sure they are on the way now that January is over and by the time they get here, I will be ready to start.