It’s that time of year when spring is in the air! It’s time to dust off the shelves, remove unwanted items, organize the closet, and clean out the garage.
It’s a time when we address neglected tasks, get rid of items that we no longer need, and prioritize our home life.
In our financial lives as well, we can also undertake a spring cleaning. This spring, there are three financial tasks that you can tackle:
- Reviewing your credit report
- Examining your credit cards
- Reviewing your beneficiary designations – for your finances and digital assets!
Reviewing Your Credit Report
If you were unable to review your credit reports at the beginning of the year, springtime is a wonderful time to review your credit report from https://www.annualcreditreport.com/.
The federally backed website allows consumers to pull TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian credit reports for free. Your credit score is excluded from the free version, but you can include it for a fee.
Reviewing your credit is a great way to ensure that everything is accurate, your accounts have been paid on time, and you have not been a victim of identity theft. Any discrepancies or fraud should be addressed immediately with the respective credit reporting agency.
Examining Your Credit Cards
For those looking to establish their credit history, opening a credit card is a terrific way to start. It is a great time to shop around and do your research.
There are two main types of credit cards: unsecured and secured. An unsecured credit card does not require collateral, while a secured credit card is backed by a cash deposit by the cardholder.
The main priority for first-time cardholders is to be disciplined, to not overspend, and to make sure you pay off the balance each month.
If you’re more financially established and you want to obtain a credit card, review the interest rates and contact your financial institution to ask about lower interest rates or promotional opportunities.
If you’ve been making payments on time for the past 6 to 9 months, the odds of landing a lower interest rate are in your favor – and your financial institution might also offer you a promotional rate.
As they say, you’ll never know unless you ask. As part of your spring cleaning, make it a priority to ask!
Reviewing Beneficiary Designations
If you’ve experienced a recent life change – such as a change in marital status or the loss of a loved one – you’ll want to take a close look at your list of beneficiaries.
And even if everything has felt normal in your life, springtime is a great time to review and update your beneficiary designations for financial products and services.
In fact, this is one financial task that too many consumers often overlook – because, unfortunately, people move on, and they pass on!
Take a full inventory and look at the beneficiaries who are listed on your checking and savings accounts. Futhermore, review your insurance policies, and retirement accounts, and make sure everything and everyone is up to date.
One common issue relates to listing a primary and contingent beneficiary. Your primary beneficiary may be identified, but what happens if they’re not available?
Digital Assets
Another overlooked area is digital assets. As more and more technical advances are integrated into our home, personal, social, and work lives, we’re establishing larger and larger digital footprints. We’ve accumulated more content than ever (i.e., photos, videos, and written content), and all of these come with ownership rights.
Now, you may not have thought about a beneficiary for your email accounts, social media accounts, apps, cloud storage, streaming services, digital content, and electronic devices. But just like with our finances, you can work ahead to define the beneficiaries of your digital assets.
Assess each of your accounts and devices. Remove the ones you don’t need anymore and organize a list of usernames and passwords that a trusted beneficiary can access.
Make this a priority in your spring cleaning. Can you imagine if your spouse or kids couldn’t access your decades and decades of pictures?
If something were to happen to you, establishing the right beneficiaries for your digital assets will allow loved ones to retrieve precious photographs and videos from your phone, computer, social media apps, and cloud services (i.e., Google Drive and Dropbox).
If you don’t establish beneficiaries for your finances and digital assets, those assets could be tied up in the court system or be lost forever.
Summary
Spring cleaning is an ideal time to examine areas in our lives that need attention, organizational improvement, and removal. It is a fantastic way to hit the reset button – and this applies to our financial and digital assets as well.
