<prompt> Human: im a man of routine, so if i make a list of things to do to go over my finances each week, month, so on, i think i should be able to organise myself well.i am unmarried, no kids and live at home, so theres not a huge amount to organise, but even still, good practices can begin now.any ideas? hopefully others can do the same.  <response>: Always:Make sure when letters bills, checks, announcements etc for you come in, you put them somewhere where you can find them. Have a designated area or better even a box or drawer for them. Print relevant e-mails or tag them in some way so that you can review them as well.Once: Design a filing system that works for you. I have one folder per year and have about five categories bank statementsannouncements incl credit card, salary and work announcements, billsreceipts and announcements from companies, insurance papers and government things. This works for me. Ive seen others file in an alphabetical system on company name, I guess?, or in folders that contain just one subject each phone company or mortgage companypayments but for all relevant years. Once a week:1. Read all your mail. Of course nonsense mail can be skipped or skimmed through quickly. Decide for each piece of paper whether you have to deletetrash, save it or put it in your to do file. 2. Saved items are things you really dont have to do anything with now, but which may be useful to save. Statements, something you need for your taxes next april, an announcement from a company we will change our prices that you dont want to act on but may want to keep for future reference, receipts that you want to keep in case the item breaks, etc.3. To do items may be something you need to pay, something you need to investigate an offer, or a change in prices or services that makes you want to investigate whether you want to switch companies, a credit card statement with items you dont recognize and need to investigate, etc. Often, when youve handled a to do item, it becomes a to save item and needs to be stored. 4. Optional. I have a spreadsheet that contains my expected monthly expenses. I know which bills Ill get. I will update this spreadsheet once a week, to see whether Im on track and to see, perhaps, that a certain bill that I expected has not been received or paid yet - which would trigger a search for it and possible some phone calls to the company. At least once a month: 1. Check whether your expenses meet your expectations. If you make budgets, make the next months budget. Once a year:1. File taxes2. Scan all very important documents and keep the scanned data somewhere safe from fire and from nosey eyes. Think about insurance data, the most important papers that you used for filing your taxes, most recent payment data on debts. Also make or update a list of what bankbrokerageretirement accounts you have. 3. Go through your archive to see which items can go. You have to keep some documents for a few years for your taxes find out how many!, but after that you may want to throw them away or shred them. You may find info on services you no longer use or items that you no longer have. They can go, too if not tax-related. 