As the end of the year comes near, it reminds me that’s it time to get any tax papers ready for the new year and close out the previous year. And its always a good idea to reconcile your bank accounts and change vital passwords, then its time to backup! Lets step thru each of these tasks:
Tax Stuff – Gather up all your w2’s, and get ready to do your taxes. I like to have mine done by the end of January that way my refund comes quicker. So if your tax documents are organized and ready now this is an easy task to accomplish in the new year.
Reconcile – You should be reconciling your bank accounts every month. Some people wait until the end of the year, but that makes it more difficult to find a mistake. If it happened three weeks ago it may be easy to remember. If it happened nine months ago I doubt you will remember when and where you spent money and you lost the receipt.
Passwords – Its always best to change your passwords. I like to do this once a year and now is the perfect time. Change your email password, bank passwords, and any other password that you use on a regular basis. Try to use letters and numbers and special characters to make it difficult to crack by unwanted thieves!
Backup – I use an external hard drive and a cloud backup. I personally use carbonite because its cheap and easy. I like to backup my documents, pictures, desktop and favorites. I also run a backup on my quicken and quickbooks files. Finally I backup my outlook email to a pst file and transfer that to the external drive. Carbonite grabs all my folders which is nice and easy for me.
Hopefully this gets you a little closer to finishing out the year and a good start on the upcoming new year!
Merry Christmas and best wishes to you and your family!