5 Easy Ways to Get Your Life Together – In an Hour or Less!

The following things I’m going to talk about today are NOT resolutions. These are tasks that you can do ONCE, and it will improve your life, save you money, and help you stress less in 2019.

Wanna know the best part? None of these tasks are going to take you more than an hour to do. One will take you literally 5 minutes.

Way to get your life together Task #1

-Go ahead and schedule your and your family’s doctors and dentists appointments, pap smears and eye exams, and tax appointments for the entire year NOW. 

Now that doesn’t mean that you have to take a week off to ferry yourself and everyone to the doctor all in one go or that you have to pay all those copays right now. You can schedule one a month if you want, or perhaps even stack up some appointments to best utilize an afternoon off and get yourself covered on all fronts for a long time. 

How will this save you money, time and worry?

First off money, my health insurance, like many, require an annual check up and I’m penalized monetarily to the tune of $30 per month if I don’t go for my check up by a certain date. My deadline is the end of july, but scheduling it now and getting it out of the way will alleviate the worry to get that done. 

By scheduling early, I have my pick of the best times for appts. I prefer the first in the morning so I never end up delayed by other people’s meetings running over. I also have time to get it on my calendar and my employers’ calendar. That way I’m not scrambling to meet a deadline and they know months ahead of time the morning I’ll be in late. 

Also if I schedule out my appointment a month or two ahead of time, I have so much time knowing thats coming to make note of things I want to bring up. Am I noticing a recurring shoulder pain? Is there something coming up that might change something for me? 

The same goes with eye appointments, dental ones – by the way I spent $150 on fillings last year just because I kept putting off cleanings and got a cavity – never again. I’m going on Feb. 14 and having a big smile on Valentines day. 

Finally, Scheduling now will ensure you’re using what you’ve paid for  and are entitled to with whatever coverage you have and its a great step to actively taking care of your health. 

As for your tax appointments, and theres no reason to wait and torture yourself with it. Get it out of the way. 

Task #2

When is the last time you shopped around for prices on your car or home insurance?

If you’re like most people, It was probably a while ago and you’re likely to be paying more than you need to. Insurance companies often raise their rates regularly for current customers and people just deal with small rate hikes when renewal time comes because it feels easier than shopping around. But considering car insurance is one of the most highly competitive markets, there’s no reason other than laziness or forgetting to be paying more. Ideally people should check around for the best insurance rates every couple of years and absolutely every time you change vehicles. 

Gabi is a really cool company that shops around for the best discounts on home, auto and rental insurance for you and is absolutely devoted to saving you money. They look at your current coverage and scour the entire internet to set you up with the same coverage or better for way less than you’re paying now. 

Wanna know how I know? Well, I checked their work! When I was shopping for my car insurance, I personally sourced quotes from every company I could find. I then had to deal with aggressive calls, emails and texts from these places desperately seeking the business. It was exhausting and infuriating. I looked up potential discounts myself and asked for them, and even drove around with one of those driving trackers, which I would not recommend at all. 

Gabi does all that for you, for free. To have them check your policy takes about a minute. you don’t have to fill in a billion boxes about your car and stuff you don’t know like your current mileage. You just connect them with your current policy and they do all the rest of the work themselves. Also, they never called me once. They just texted me my savings. They will even break up with your old insurance company for you. 

And if you do have the cheapest policy, like one I ran through them, and they can’t beat it, they come back and say congrats, you’ve got the cheapest rate we can find. They won’t try to sell you if you don’t need them. 

It’s literally the easiest way to make sure you’re not overpaying and everyone has and should take a minute to check. 

Use the link https://gabi.com/gobudgetgirl to check them out, and thank me later. 

Task #3

Put all your tax documents in one place. Now that you’ve made your tax appointment or committed a time on your calendar to do it yourself, start getting organized. Most work tax forms, investment return forms, health requirement letters, etc. start going out in January. Print them as you get the emails and stick them in ONE FOLDER so when you go to do your taxes, you have everything there. 

It’s also another reason to not put taxes off- its too easy to lose the paperwork. Some places also won’t even send you these forms, you have to go track them down yourself on the websites. 

Make sure not to forget:

• your w-2s
• 1095 C health insurance compliance form
• student loan interest paid
• any investment, savings account or 401k dividends you have to report
• your mileage
• work or business-related deductions
• charitable giving
• inheritances
• winnings
• side hustle income.

Check yourself twice and put it all in the folder. 

How will this save you money/ time and stress?

First getting this out of the way makes room in your brain for NOT thinking about taxes for the rest of the year. Next it saves you time because you’re printing and filing things as you get them and not hunting for that paperwork later and it definitley saves you money by never having to pay for a late penalty, extension or surge pricing at your tax preparer. it also gives you time to fix any issues that inevitably come up. And if you’re getting a refund, you then have that money in hand to pay off debt and save on interest or save or invest it and earn more!

Task #4

Never forget a bday or important date again – Take an hour and put every important birthday, anniversary, days off or major event date in your google/ apple/ phone/ desk calendar. Set appropriate alerts, for instance a week/ a day out for bdays to send a card or message, and NEVER AGAIN forget when someone you love needs to be celebrated. 

If you’re using an online calendar, set the event to repeat annually and if you have a paper one, when you switch them out each year, take a moment to copy the info over. 

BAM – suddenly you’re the person who never forgets a birthday or anniversary/ someone who’s known for having their ish together. 

You’re welcome!

Task #5

Clean out your purse and car. I’m not even a naturally messy person, but i just cleaned out my purse and found a list of who to make Christmas stuff for. It’s februrary. Also noone wants to be that person who has to fish around in their purse or move stuff to give someone a ride. 

Take pride in your ride. Clean it out. organize it and run it thorugh a cheap car wash. (I honestly think the most basic level at any drive through is the best deal,) the upgrades aren’t worth it. Bonus points if you go to one where you can vacuum out your car for free with any wash – those quarters add up. 

Now the thing you carry everywhere and the thing that carries you are organized, put together and by extension you do too. And once these areas are clean, its easy to keep them that way. Congrats. 

So picture this – you’re now set for the rest of the year on appointments, you’re going to remember every single birthday without ever logging into facebook, you know you aren’t paying a cent more than you have to on insurance and your bag and ride are all squared away. You feeling like an adult yet? I am! And with the exception of the car and bag, which should be kept up thoroughout the year, you only had to do these tasks ONCE. and now you have brainspace for everything else that’s going on. 

Way to freaking go!

So tell me – which of these are you going to do today or this week to set yourself up to succeed for the rest of the year? None of them are going to take you more than an hour.