Found Money

Here’s something I didn’t expect: going through the process of cataloging all my financial accounts helped me find money I’d forgotten about.

Turns out I had a small investment account from my previous job that I’d opened during some enthusiastic phase of retirement planning in my thirties and then completely ignored for almost three decades. It wasn’t life-changing money, but it was enough to cover a vacation.

I also discovered I was paying for a subscription to a meditation app I’d downloaded as inspiration with my yoga class, but haven’t used much. And a cloud storage service that I’d signed up for temporarily for a client project and forgotten to cancel. Oops. And I realised that my phone plan was costing me more money than it should.

The process of documenting everything forces you to actually look at all your accounts, all your subscriptions, and all your recurring payments. Most of us set these things up and then never think about them again, which means we’re often paying for things we don’t use or missing opportunities to optimize things we do use.

It’s like doing a financial audit, except the goal isn’t to impress an accountant. The goal is to figure out what you actually have so you can make adjust ments and ensure someone else knows about it, too.

I’m not saying everyone will find forgotten treasure in their financial accounts. But I bet most people will find at least a few things they can clean up or optimize.

And if nothing else, you’ll have a complete picture of your financial life, which is useful information to have while you’re still alive to use it.

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