How Long Would It Take You to Gather Your Financial Information?

Do you have 3 different retirement accounts?  Do you have 4 different insurance policies?  Do you have 2 checking and 2 savings accounts?  Do you have some retirement accounts that you sometimes forget the name of the company that holds the account because you have so little money in there and it is from a company you worked for 8 years ago?

Do you have ten open credit card accounts?  Do you have several different cards with many balances?  Have you ever received mail from a credit card company and your first impression is that you should open the mail because it may from an account you think is still open but you aren't sure?

Take this test.

With no prior preparation, look at the clock.  Write down the time.  Now, go and gather a statement for each of the items in the list above.  How long did it take you?

Less than 5 minutes means you are well organized and on the right track.  One day means that you have recently visited and probably plan from time to time.  Less than a week means that you probably run around town and take an entire day when you need to do something like transfer money from one bank to another.  Over two weeks, means you need to hire someone so that you can be a phone call away from 5 minutes!

This post was reposted from http://finlit.biz/business/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-gather-your-financial-information/, originally written on February 3rd, 2013.