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Authored by Pier Yvette Alsup, American Eagle Credit Union

Year-end checklists for your personal finances can be long and complicated … including tasks such as selling investments and re-balancing portfolios, to maxing out retirement savings contributions and using FSA balances.  But year-end checklists can also be short and easy—and apply to most everyone!

Here is a simple 3-step checklist to complete before year end:

Set up AUTO PAY for your regular, recurring bills.

We talked about this earlier this year.  Most of your recurring bills – utilities, mortgage, car loan and credit card – provide an option of having payments automatically deducted from your savings or checking account. You can also create your own “auto-pay” by scheduling recurring payments directly from your account with online bill pay. Paying bills on time helps your credit score and saves you money.  Make it easy in 2019 by making it automatic.

Set up to receive eStatements

eStatements are a secure, convenient, and environmentally friendly to access your monthly account statements. When you switch from paper to e-statements, it is important to be aware of “email clutter”—because, let’s face it, we all receive more email than we can read!  So there are a few “best practices” for managing e-statements:

• Open and save your statement each month. Save it to a folder you create, much like the folder or filing system you had for the paper version.
• Keep your contact information up-to-date with your financial institutions, utility companies. This ensures you receive all notifications regarding you e-statements.
• Keep your computer secure. This of course, is important whether you receive e-statements for not!

Set up debit and credit card alerts

Most all card issuers offer some type of “activity alerts” for your card.  Typically these range from activity alerts based on your spending preferences and patterns to alerts defined specifically by you, the cardholder.  These can be as specific as when, where and how the card can be used.  Alerts will help you keep your accounts safe, but more importantly they will help you stay in-tune with your day-to-day spending and even assist you with budgeting.

We hope you have a joyous holiday season. For more information on financial wellness, budgeting and useful calculators, visit the American Eagle Credit Union website today. Or, visit their HowDoYouCU blog for more great insights.