It’s almost 2015 and this is one of my favourite times of the year! It’s time to set new goals, look at your finances, AND what I find the most exciting – purge your world! Before 2015 comes rolling in in a few days, spend some time and unclutter. Think how awesome you’ll feel when you are free of excess every-ting from 2014? You will be a lean, mean money machine in 2015. Here are the three areas to purge. They seem unrelated but they all work together to get you ready for 2015. This is what we are going to purge!
1. Your Clothing:
Take everything in your closet and throw it on your bed. That’s right – every-ting. Then make four different piles from it all.
a) Fierce clothes that you can sell. I have eight, yes eight blue merino wool sweaters from great designers and so I’m taking six of them to the the consignment store and I’ll sell them. Anything that is great quality and in good shape – try to make a buck from. Purses, wallets, funky boots, cow boy hats, it’ll all be worth something.
b) Anything that you can’t sell goes in this next pile. Things that you don’t think you would get a buck for, like the sweaters from your suburban in laws that went to their local malls and got you something hideous for Christmas. Yes, we’ve all been there. Orange half zip, it’s off you go.
c) Things to go into the garbage is the last pile and this includes miss matched socks, gross undies, and anything that was used to entertain in the evening like sailor, dirty nurse or slutty pirate outfits. We don’t want any pacemakers stopping at the thrift shop.
d) Your fierce clothes that you’ll keep. You can now colour co-ordinate it all back into your closet so it looks like a Club Monaco.
2. Your Stuff:
Empty all of the places you keep knickknacks, like old Christmas cards, plastic bags from the grocery store, the rice cooker, any place like that empty it out. Same drill – let’s give all of these places a good purge.
a) Bottles where you can get a deposit are the first thing to round up. Get in there and box up those bottles and get your deposit back. It’ll make room under the sink or in the garage and get you a coffee or two.
b) Any appliance that you haven’t use in a while and don’t see yourself using – put it up on Kijiji or Craigslist. It would be a steamer, drill set, bread maker or even some old collectibles or toys. Throw it up and try to make a buck from it! If you don’t get a bite in a week – chuck it.
c) Now all the crap that you can’t sell or store in a more efficient way be sure to chuck like old plastic bags, head bands from lulu lemon (I found one and I’m wearing it as I type this) or any boxes, old pillows or ugly throw rugs that you don’t want to display. Purge is the word Babes!
3. Your Money:
Now that I have you on a roll I’m going to focus you on your money. Let’s figure out exactly how much we spent last year, plan for what we want this year and how we save and make more next year. Ready to purge money monkeys! 2015 is going to be our best year every and we are planting the seeds right now.
a) Download all of your bank and credit card transactions into your money management system and let it figure out how much you spent on everything that this year. There are free services on the web like Mint or you can use a paid service through a software company like Quicken. It’ll populate into big categories like eating out, shopping, vacations, and booze. All areas that your might want to cut down on how you spend and then allocate them to RRSPs or TFSAs.
b) Figure out your big money goals once you see where all your money went to. When I did this exercise I saw that I spend a ton on eating out and this year I’m shaving 10% of that budget and THEN shaving another 10% to re-allocate to go on a trip to Eastern Island with my family next Christmas. I’m already staying in tonight to make it happen!
c) Now go through all of your money folders and boxes and purge of old receipts, statements and documents that you don’t need. Get a shoe box and organize the documents that you still do need. It’ll feel so good to have it all in one place (Like your Will) and uncluttered for 2015!
I hope everyone has an awesome purge and feels ready and strong for an awesome 2015!
See you all next year,
Dave
