The Boring Newsletter, 4/22/2023

Hi Friendos,

There’s a podcast about cleaning that I love. Hanna, one of the hosts, says that a lot of times, the problem isn’t that someone is “bad” at cleaning, they just need a better system. I am all about systems for preventing problems and making life easier (automating finances is a superpower), and part of my personal finance system is my “annual review” of the Family Finances Binder.

Oh yes, there is an actual 3-ring binder:

I will write more about all of what’s in the binder another week, but for now just know that I splashed out for premium binder tabs (I really loved getting new school supplies when I was a kid):

And at the beginning of each year, when normal people are sleeping off their hangovers and pretending like they’ll actually start going to the gym every week, I go through The Checklist:

The Checklist is highly personal to the needs of my household and I’ve refined it over the years. I think it probably just started with “rebalance investment portfolio” and grew from there. Somewhere I heard a recommendation to link testing smoke alarms with another annual activity, and that made sense to me so I added it. Maybe your household would also benefit from having an annual checklist as part of your personal finance system.

-Stephanie