Christmas is over and we have ushered in a new year.  January is the time to get down to business and get ourselves organized.  With very little effort you can have everything running like clockwork. Are you still using the proverbial shoebox to organize your taxes?  There is a better way!  It is easy to maintain and at the end of the year most of your work is complete.  Remember that your accountant charges by the hour, so the more work you do for them, the more money you will save.  If you do your own taxes, you will have saved yourself time.

If you follow your credit card statements closely, you’ll notice that many credit card companies have been protecting themselves by raising interest rates and charging higher fees for late payments as well as reducing credit lines, sometimes they are revoked all together. Many interest rates are now as high as 25%. Of course, like many people, these changes can sneak past us. What do we do if credit card bills get out of hand? How can we lower our bills?

First, try to meet your minimum payment each month, in fact, most suggest to pay as much as you can towards the one with the highest interest rate. I set an automatic payment with my online bank so as not to worry about accidentally missing the due date. Plus you can always alter it up or down depending on your circumstances that month.