Tag Archives: paperless

2012 – Marching into Spring (Cleaning)

05 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in Changes & Progress, Health, Paperless

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

This year is going waaaay faster than expected.  Still, so far so good.  I did do a couple more substitutions in February, but a couple were huge and had been hanging around for a very long time.  Electronics clutter got moved to March in favor of a massive garage cleaning which actually restored enough space to do things in the garage.  So, here we go with the February summary:

  • Finances – 2011 taxes complete and filed.  This will be the earliest ever, but I have kept up with my filing and have all the information on hand, so we’re going for the record (and the early refund).  This will, however, finish up the “location for important information” and review 2011 part of January’s original goal. – Completed
  • Paperless – Set up auto-pays, paperless billing, equal payment plans and get finances into an electronic format to make life easier next tax season.  – Completed
  • House – Electronics clutter.  In January I moved the “family computer” to the upstairs spare room.  Time to redo the wiring, get rid of out of date hardware and electronics, sift through those chargers, cables and whatsits. – Substitution: Garage Cleaning
  • Health & Sanity – Certification updates since I’ve been a bit of a slacker.  And the traditional professional credentials and resume refresh – while I don’t plan to change jobs, this is something that is easier to keep updated “as you go” than to try and remember after a few years.

March Goals:

  • Finances – Passports & wills.  Time for the boy to get a “full passport” and our wills are horribly out of date.
  • Paperless – Shredding month.  Get rid of anything older than the “required record keeping” limit.  This should actually eliminate an entire file cabinet, but we’ll see.
  • House – Electronics clutter.  In January I moved the “family computer” to the upstairs spare room.  Time to redo the wiring, get rid of out of date hardware and electronics, sift through those chargers, cables and whatsits. – Carried over since there was a February substitution.
  • Health & Sanity – Continuing with certifications.  1 per month until they are all current.  This is also the month for my second 5K and I’ve signed up with a training group to push myself a bit more.

Let Someone Else Do The Work!

03 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by in Changes & Progress, Cheapskate, Minimalist, Paperless

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

  • The problem:  Too much manual labor on finances, too much paper.
  • The resolution:  Review 2011 for the timesappers and eliminate them.
  • The long term solution:  Set up autopays, paperless billing and notifications.
  • Before:
    Already on autopay: 3
    Not on autopay: 7
    Already paperless: 1
    Not paperless: 9 – yikes!
    With text or e-mail notifications: 6
    Without text or e-mail notifications: 4
  • After:
    Autopay: 7
    Not on autopay: 3
    Paperless: 7
    Not paperless: 3
    With text or e-mail notifications: 8
    Without text or e-mail notifications: 2

Step by step:

  1. Make a list of all regularly occurring expenses or deposits, noting whether they are paperless, autopay, online, and provide notifications or alerts.
  2. Determine what is needed for tax records (mortgage, credit cards, banking statements) and set up an alert to download and store to secure location.
  3. Access or enroll in all online programs, change passwords, record information needed to access in secure location.
  4. Identify which accounts are EPP (equal payment plan) or can be EPP and enroll.
  5. For each account:  enable paperless, enable notifications and alerts, enable autopay
  6. For each *changed* account: pay existing balance, check accounts for the next 60 day to ensure they are being paid.
  7. Review the prior year for occasional payments such as insurance.
  8. Add autopay dates to calendar or financial program with alerts.
  9. As appropriate, review costs and contracts, make adjustments or changes as needed, set alerts for contract expirations.
  10. Schedule regular transfer from checking to savings.

A few issues did come up – one of the utilities only allows you to enroll in EPP in June, so I set an alert in Outlook for May so I’d be ready to go for that.  Still battling my way through enrolling in anything online for my internet/TV – even calling technical support doesn’t seem to be getting me anywhere.  Not enrolling one of the credit cards for autopay was by choice, though I may change that down the line.  All in all I eliminated quite a few paper bills and one online bill paying day per month and one “drive around and pay the Luddites” day per month, which should save a good deal of time (and paper) over the course of the year.

2012 – It’s February Already??!!!

05 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in Changes & Progress, Cheapskate, Health, Minimalist, Paperless

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Wow.  January went fast.  And it was productive – I’ve posted on completion of two of the goals (one was modified – I put off full paperless bill pay for a bit, even though I got quite a lot of that done, my attention was directed at refinancing) and will get the other two up this week (I’ve not taken the “after” pictures yet).  To summarize January:

  • Finances – Set autopays, text/e-mail notifications, review 2011 and pick a location to start putting the “important information” as I come across it.  (Especially that which is needed for taxes.) – Substitution Goal
  • Paperless – eliminate one entire bookcase by sales, donations, trades or recycling.  Remove the bookcase from the house. – Complete
  • House – clean out the “Christmas clutter”, organize and pack up only what will be a pleasure to unpack next year. – Complete
  • Health & Sanity – time for the 2012 reading challenge and registering for my next 5K. – Complete

On to February:

  • Finances – 2011 taxes complete and filed.  This will be the earliest ever, but I have kept up with my filing and have all the information on hand, so we’re going for the record (and the early refund).  This will, however, finish up the “location for important information” and review 2011 part of January’s original goal.
  • Paperless – Set up auto-pays, paperless billing, equal payment plans and get finances into an electronic format to make life easier next tax season.  (Part II of January’s Finances goal)
  • House – Electronics clutter.  In January I moved the “family computer” to the upstairs spare room.  Time to redo the wiring, get rid of out of date hardware and electronics, sift through those chargers, cables and whatsits.
  • Health & Sanity – Certification updates since I’ve been a bit of a slacker.  And the traditional professional credentials and resume refresh – while I don’t plan to change jobs, this is something that is easier to keep updated “as you go” than to try and remember after a few years.

I should mention, that for all the flurry of activity this is spawning, I have to admit that the moments of panic and stress are decreasing and the feeling of positive forward movement is increasing.  Now if I could just get into the habit of posting regularly instead of in spurts. 😉

A New Year Right Around the Corner

18 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by in Books, Changes & Progress, Cheapskate, Minimalist, Paperless

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

So, year after year I’ve noticed consistent themes and progress (which is good) but not closure really.  I’ve decluttered and my life is much lighter, but not quite “there”.  I’ve trimmed and cut and budgeted, but still not quite “there”.  I’ve even knocked a couple of items off the old bucket list.  That said, I still don’t feel that I’m entirely focused on “the important things” because I’m surrounded by (and in some cases drowning in) “the other stuff”.  So I think that, this year, I’m going to focus each month on one problem that’s eating up more time than it should, eliminate it and put in a way to keep it at bay – completely closed.

Finances have been a consistent time consumer for years as has the paper that surrounds them.  I’ve made some inroads (refinancing, reducing, consolidating) but they still chew up more headspace than they deserve.  So they are on the list.

Clutter in the form of paper also drags on year after year, though the handy shredder has helped a lot.  I still find myself moving paper from place to place as I “can’t quite decide what to do with it”.  This year, I decide.

Home repair and improvement and all the “stuff” that goes along with it (and the yard is included in this) is possibly the biggest albatross around the neck.  And it ties to both the finances and the paper.  Time to resolve.

Health and well being is last but hardly least.  Less stuff, more time, better habits, better food, greener, better quality and less expensive.  What do I need that I don’t have, what do I have that I don’t need, what does the family really use that could stand an upgrade or streamlining?  Simple questions and this year we find the answers.

Four categories, twelve months, 52 weeks.  At a rate of 4 hours per week, 16 hours per month (divided up ever how it makes sense).  While I’m sure there will be gaps and random posts and such, the goal this year is to pick one problem in each category at the beginning of each month, document the issue and resolve one each week.  And by resolve, either completely eliminate the issue or integrate a habit so it doesn’t become a problem again.

So, January will be:

  • Finances – Set autopays, text/e-mail notifications, review 2010 and pick a location to start putting the “important information” as I come across it.  (Especially that which is needed for taxes.)
  • Paperless – eliminate one entire bookcase by sales, donations, trades or recycling.  Remove the bookcase from the house.
  • House – clean out the “Christmas clutter”, organize and pack up only what will be a pleasure to unpack next year.
  • Health & Sanity – time for the 2012 reading challenge and registering for my next 5K.

Wish me luck. 🙂

To E-Book or Not to E-Book?

14 Saturday May 2011

Posted by in Books, Cosmic Questions, Geeky, Paperless

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

One of those interesting paperless questions that tends to torture me.  Do I read e-books?  Yes, I have the Kindle app as well as other assorted e-book readers on both my iPad and my Windows 7 phone and I’ve read books, technical documents and short stories on them.  Obviously, this is the truly paperless solution and more than likely the one we will all be using exclusively in the future.  With more and more authors choosing to e-publish only, schools incorporating more digital texts, libraries providing e-book downloads and readers getting cheaper and cheaper, it’s pretty much a done deal.

It’s going to be a sad day for me.  I love to hold a book.  Books never have low batteries or glare issues.  You can tell from my much older articles I think PaperBackSwap is one of the best sites around and I’m still a religious user.  That said, it’s a lot heavier to carry a selection of books than an eReader and you don’t have to worry about the bookmark falling out.  I love being able to switch from device to device and synch up to my last stopping point.  Electronic publishing has made short stories and novellas more accessible as individual products.  It’s certainly easier for new authors to publish electronically and for established authors to promote shorter works.

In truth, I’m just looking for the perfect tablet to add to my paperless arsenal.  While I doubt I’ll be jumping to new release books anytime soon, you never can tell – I would dearly love to see a format for eBooks similar to the all-you-can-eat Zune Pass model for music.   That, my friends, would probably be the start of a serious reduction in physical books around our place.