By the end of the year, life tends to feel a little chaotic, doesn’t it? Between the holidays, kids, work, life, you can start to wonder if you’ll ever be able to breathe again. But the first of the year always feels full of possibility, as if we can do anything. It’s why we make New Year’s resolutions.
To have a better year, reach your goals, and feel a little less crazed in chaotic times, it’s time to get your life organized. If one your resolutions is to finally figure out how, we’ve got a few tips for you.
Try Meal Prepping
We all have good intentions about our diets. Instead of eating whatever gets left in the office break room, we’ll bring our lunch. Instead of hitting the drive-thru (again), we’ll cook dinner. But then life gets in the way, and we’re exhausted and hangry. All of our good intentions are out the window, and we’re eating all the unhealthy foods we said we’d avoid.
To keep your New Year’s resolution to eat healthier and to give yourself more time in the day, start meal prepping this year. Pick one day each week, and get a week’s worth of meals ready.
- Bag up salad mix for every day of the week. Cook chicken and portion it into five containers. Now you a nice salad for lunch every day.
- Batch cook big meals and portion them out for each night. When you come home, dinner just needs to be heated up.
- Gather the ingredients for slow cooker meals and put them in one gallon bag or container and freeze. Each morning, pull out a bag, pop it into the slow cooker, and come home to a fully cooked meal.
Get Your Finances Organized
Between financial records and tax-related paperwork (like your W-2), there’s a lot of documents to keep up with. Lose one piece of paper, and you might pay too much in taxes. No one wants that. This year, get organized with a filing system that you can keep up with.
- Buy file folders and label them with the year. When you get a tax or financial document, put it in the folder.
- Scan and save your files onto your computer. Phone apps like TurboScan or Scanner Pro can use your camera to do this or you can buy a printer that has a scanner built-in.
- Make back-ups of any digital file you create for your financial documents. Put them in digital folders named for the year, and save them in a place you’ll remember.
Review Your Budget
The start of the year is a perfect time to go through your budget and make adjustments. Have some expenses gone up? Can you find ways to decrease your spending? If part of your plan is to pay off debt this year, now is a great time to figure out how much you can afford to put towards a loan or credit card.
As you make these adjustments, be very honest about where you spend your money. Don’t shrug off your $3 a day coffee habit or your impromptu lunches at work. But don’t think you have to cut all of these things either. Make some room in your budget for fun things like trips, splurges, and the small luxuries that keep you going on a tough day.
Review Your Insurance Coverage
If you want to start the year off with less to worry about and knowing you’re as organized as possible, you can’t forget about an annual insurance review. This is a time to go through your existing coverage and make sure it’s right for your life today. We’ll also help you find discounts and update your policies to reflect your current situation.
It’s easy for certain things to slip through the cracks, and you might not have thought to call your insurance agent after a remodel or when your oldest moved out of the house. If you have specific goals for the year ahead, we can discuss this too, and let you know how it will impact your insurance coverage.
When you’re ready to schedule your annual insurance review, give us a call. At Charlotte Insurance, we’re here to help you protect what matters most — without paying anymore than you need to.