bluntmoney.com

A new article is posted each day on Blunt Money, where you get plain talk about money and personal finance. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

With so much going on all the time, it can be easy to forget things. The little things that slip through the cracks can sometimes cost a significant amount of money over the long term.

What do I mean? Things like clients who are on irregular (and non-automated) billing cycles. Credit card due dates that change from month to month. Rebate deadlines that pass without the form being returned. Airlines that still haven’t reimbursed you for the clothes you had to buy when your luggage was lost 6 months ago. (Are they hoping I’ll forget that one? Hah!) Coupons that you forget to take to the store, even though you already spent the time to cut them out. Annual bills that slip your mind. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Even leaving aside the lost luggage issue, the items I just listed above could cost you hundreds of dollars or more. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want hundreds of dollars slipping through my fingers just because I forgot about them.

So what’s the solution, other than developing the memory of an elephant? It’s simple — write it down. You can write it in a paper calendar on a particular date in the future, or setup an electronic reminder, but either way, get it down — when it FIRST crosses your path.

For example, as you pay your semi-annual property tax bill, write the due date of the next bill into your calendar right then. As you do work for a client, write the billable hours to date on the last day of the month (or whenever you’d bill them.) If you buy an item that has a rebate, write yourself a reminder to fill out the form a couple of days out. You’ll save yourself money over the long term — both in reduced fees and increased savings.