After you’ve packed away all your winter coats, scarves, and turtlenecks and dusted off all your t-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops for spring, keep that spring-cleaning momentum going and tackle your bills, your financial files, and your debts. By taking better hold of your finances, you may be able to find ways to save throughout the rest of the year.

1. Review your credit
   Pull your free credit report from each of the three major credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — at annualcreditreport.com for free once a year. Check your credit reports for any inaccuracies, discrepancies, or expired records and report any errors to the individual credit bureau whose information you want to dispute. Looking at your credit report every year will help you detect any signs of identity theft and help you see what actions you’ve taken that could be dinging your credit score and limiting your access to credit.
2. File your financial records
   Gather all your bank statements, insurance and legal documents, and personal records and organize them in a file system that works for you. If you already have an organization system worked out, clean out the files you no longer need and take those documents to the shredder. Make copies of your most important documents and store them in a fire-resistant safe in your home or in a safety-deposit box at your bank.
3. Monitor your spending
   Find out where you can weed out excessive spending. If you do online banking check to see if your bank breaks down your monthly expenses by category so you can figure out just how much you’re spending on that daily cup of coffee, those weekly movie rentals, and your monthly restaurant bills. Or try the old-fashioned method: carry around a pocket-sized notebook and record every purchase you make for a month. Once you know what you’re spending your money on, you’ll know where you can cut back.
4. Protect your assets
   Work with a legal professional to draft a will. Whether your account balance is two digits or six digits, that money is yours to do with as you please so make sure your assets are taken care of in a manner you’re comfortable with.
5. Take stock of your debt
   Calculate the total debt you owe between your credit cards, student loans, car loans, etc. Check with your lenders to see if they can lower any of your interest rates. Or see if you can advantage of today’s historically low interest rates by refinancing your home and auto loan. If your debt has ballooned out of control and your lenders can’t help, you may be able to reduce your balances through a debt settlement program.

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