Steps toward the will, financial “self defense”, and being prepared

I’ve been reading several personal finance blogs of late (in particular my faves are the Simple Dollar and FiveCentNickel). They’ve been encouraging me to get my finances in a stronger state of order – a will, identity theft protection, sticking to the budget, and basic info gathered for emergencies. (As is witnessed by my previous post.)

But things have been looming over my head. I’ve been working toward the goals for a good month or so. But I thought I’d be farther along. It occurred to me today to start writing about it and listing out my goals. Then I can see the progress, tell the looming cloud of self doubt to go somewhere else, and look forward to new projects. (Also for writing about it, I get entered into a contest that is giving away, among other things, a USB drive. Hey that’s right up my alley! Not sure what to do with the “bricks” if I get those!)

Baby steps so far:

(done) Listings of accounts and assets. (This took a while as I was switching software at the same time.)

(done) Catch up on filing and shred the monster pile of papers I took out of the filing cabinet.

(done) Credit reports and opting out of credit offers, and basic steps toward protecting your identity. (Do not call registry was done a while back, should check on when that gets updated…)

(done) Yesterday scanned the documents in the fire safe (wasn’t much there but still…).

(done) Request closure of account of mine that I don’t use.

(done) Install CFLs throughout out house. (Exceptions – photography lighting and small 3 way lamps.)

(done) Start a little emergency cash fund. (This requires restraint – I tend to spend cash. So the fund can’t be too big or it will become VERY tempting.)

(done) Start on high yeild saving account.

(done) Partial automation of encrypted backup to USB drive. The backup I do daily has to be easy, or I won’t keep doing the backups!

(in progress) Today scan documents from safe deposit box.

(yet to do) Thurs – scan a report from each of the IRAs, so have contact info on those.

(yet to do) Friday – I should hit the insurance policies. Then I’ll be ready for the actual will part.

(yet to do) Ask hubby to close his unused account.

(yet to do) Consolodate IRAs from various previous jobs and setup Roth IRA.

Man, looking back over what I’ve done the last few months really helps lift my spirits!

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Last thought: I’m half tempted to buy several USB drives to give to friends as gifts, so they can do a similar thing. A dear friend’s computer was down and she was wondering what in the world she was going to do since her finances files were there and there only. An encrypted USB drive with the latest copy of her files would have given her some peace of mind that day. (So many uses for USB drives, not enough of them in my household or enough time to tinker with all the ideas!)