Lets be honest about something: Spending money is way more fun than saving it. And not everyone spends the same way.

There are spenders like me, the ones who are well aware that they are spending money, even on stuff they dont need. They like spending money on anything from food to clothes, from movies to magazines. (Heck, sometimes if I need a quick break during the workday, Ill walk a block to the pharmacy just to buy a pack of gum.)

Then there are the where-did-my-money-go spenders. These spenders are people who dont necessarily intend to spend their money on anything they can get their hands on, but before they know it, their bank account is running on low.

No matter where you fall on the spectrum, Manilla can help change spending habitsand especially the way you manage spending. Heres how:

1) You can stop wasting money on late fees. When its time to make a bill payment, Manilla sends you reminders via email or text message, so you never have to deal with late fees. You can even set your own reminders for accounts or bills that Manilla doesnt support (e.g., pay babysitter or pay school tuition).

2) You always know what you owe. Manilla lets you see all of your balances, bills and due dates in one secure place. With a few clicks of a mouse, you can see the balance of your bank account on the same screen where you see how much you owe on your credit card (which could sway your decision against making unnecessary purchases).

3) You can see everything, 24/7. With Manilla, you can see your all of your accounts in one place, whenever you want. When you link your accounts, Manilla automatically sorts them into these four categories: household, financial, subscriptions and travel. I bet you never thought you could manage your Netflix queue right next to your checking account. But with Manilla, its possible.

For me, Manilla is more than just a site where I manage my accounts its the tool I use to avoid making purchases that will hurt my budget. So if youre interested inbetter spending habits, try using Manilla. Trust me: Your wallet will thank you for it.

Email is perhaps the biggest double-edge sword of our modern time. The advent of email revolutionized communication while simultaneously laying the foundation for unprecedented overwhelm in the workplace. According to the Radicati Group, somewhere in the neighborhood of 294 billion (yes BILLION) emails are sent every day. Of those, Pingdom claims 89% of all emails are spam. Combine all the legitimate email with oodles of junk e-mail and its pretty dang near impossible for the average person to get to inbox zero.

Granted, some people enjoy having a defacto communication history sitting right there in their inbox and others dont mind a little inbox e-clutter. But if your lifes bucket list includes getting to inbox zero just once, here are five ways to get you closer to your goal.

Lay Down The Law

Even if youre a rebel your email shouldnt be. Set up rules within your email client so your inbox doesnt even see every message you receive. Most rules will require a corresponding folder, so set those up in advance.

For example, all messages containing the word Viagra can be auto-routed to trash, all messages from a specific sender can be forwarded to another person or another email address and any message from your boss can go into a folder called URGENT. Rules are based on whatever criteria you wish, either single or multiple, and can be as simple or complex as you like.

Jump Off Lists

Newsletters and listserv traffic can really clog up the works when it comes to getting to inbox zero. Reduce the volume of messages you receive by opting out of regular newsletters you never make time to read anway, or listservs you just ignore. And if you find (as I often do) that people add you willy-nilly to their newsletter list without your permission, for Petes sake unsubscribe immediately.

Filter The Spam

If your inbox is clogged with spam, and your company doesnt use a spam blocking technology solution at the server level, check out account-based filters. CNET has plenty listed to choose from, complete with user and editor reviews. Your email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail) or ISP (Internet Service Provider) may also offer integrated spam filtering. Regardless of how you defend against spam, auto-filtering is one way to keep your your inbox clutterfree, giving you fewer messages to manually delete.

Flag For Follow Up

When an email requires a response, action or follow-up, relying on your memory is a dangerous game. It only takes dropping one important ball to learn that hard lesson. Your email client will have some way of marking messages for follow-up, whether its a custom-color flag (Outlook), a yellow flag (Apple Mail) or changing the color of the text. If flags dont work for you, just marking items as unread until you respond to them helps keep things from falling through the cracks and gives you a visual reminder of what you still have on your plate.

Sort And Search

Even with rules, flags and filters in place, email can build up in your sub-folders making it difficult to find that specific and important conversation from last month. Instead of wasting time manually scrolling back back back through weeks of old messages, make a habit of sorting messages by clicking on column headings to narrow your choices.

Also, dont forget your emails search function is the quickest way to find a specific name, word, or phrase which will lead you to the conversation you want. In addition, although Google Desktop has been discontinued, Windows offers Windows Search and Apple offers Spotlight as part of their operating systems. Both search functions which will quickly scour your entire hard drive to find just what youre looking for, based on file name, application name or file contents.

So there you have it. Five easy tips to move you one step closer to inbox zero.

Monica Ricci is an Atlanta-based Certified Professional Organizer, Productivity Expert, speaker & author who foundedCatalyst Organizingin 1998. A leader in her field, and winner of the NAPO Founders Award, Monica is passionate about teaching people to create simple, joyful, powerful lives.

In my family, perhaps like yours, my mom always put herself last. She never went for seconds until the rest of us were finished eating — except when it came to dessert! And she still will hang on to a threadbare winter coat if it means being able to splurge on a wish-list item for her grandchildren. From what many of you shared, my mom isn’t that different from others — or maybe even you.
But in honor of this recent Mother’s Day, I want all moms to put themselves first — and pledge to keep putting their needs first, especially when it comes to their finances, every single day of the year. No financial martyrs allowed. There’s no better gift to yourself or anyone than the gift of financial independence. It’s an ongoing topic of conversation with my mom. Here are the tips that I’ve shared with her and can help you put your best financial foot forward this year:

Take stock of what you have in hand, both in savings and investments, and think about how you are putting your hard-earned cash to work.

Find your “financial Iowa” and align your spending, saving and investments with those priorities. It will really help you keep financial distractions at bay and weigh trade-offs more carefully.

Pay yourself first by contributing each month to your employer-sponsored retirement plan, a Traditional or Roth IRA, and a “rainy day” fund. And, if you’ve stepped out of the workplace, keep contributing to a spousal IRA.

Live within your means — and when you want to treat your children or grandchildren, spend on the right stuff. Hate the B-word (keep it clean: I mean “budget”)? I promise you’ll reclaim if after reading my article, 6 Steps to Rethinking Your Budget.

Embrace the word “no” — to yourself when it comes to an impulse purchase or when it comes to others. Don’t let emotions — love, lust or guilt — drive your financial decision-making. If you’re not sure how to talk to your partner, kids or even parents about money, Women & Co.’s Start Talking conversation starters can help.

Don’t shy away from planning for the “bad stuff” that can happen, from divorce to disability to natural disaster to auto accident. It’s not fun to think about these things, but having contingencies and safety nets in place — such as a will, power of attorney, health care proxy, life insurance, long-term care insurance, etc. — can make all the difference in how you and your family fare in the short-term and in the long-term.

Tap the wisdom and experience of a financial professional to help you craft your financial road map and keep you on course. Not sure how to go about finding one? I wrote an article that walks you through the process.

It’s not easy to break old habits. As my mom always used to say when I struggled with my piano playing: “practice makes perfect.” Over time, you’ll enjoy and appreciate the feeling of financial empowerment. I know that I do.

Linda Descano,CFA, is President and Chief Executive Officer ofWomen & Co., Citibanks complimentary online resource that provides expert content and commentary for women who want to enhance their financial acumen. Linda is a noted authority on wealth management and personal finance.

Whether you work from home or not, most people have some type of home office or place where they do work from home either for their employer or for themselves. In this post we are going to look at five things to consider when designing your home office to maximize productivity.

1. Proximity Matters

When you are designing a home office, make sure you put things that you need often near where you need them. For example, if you want to get better about shredding documents with sensitive information on them, don’t put your shredder across the room or in the closet. It needs to be out where you can easily get to it. The more effort it takes to do something the less often you will want to do it, so arrange your tools so it is easy to do your desired tasks.

Usually when my desk starts getting messy I can trace it back to the fact that I have something placed wrong. For example, if my scanner isn’t easily within reach and hooked up, I won’t scan documents into my paperless system and they start stacking up on my desk. If my trash can got moved across the room, I’ll end up with piles of stuff on my desk that should have been discarded.

2. Lighting Is Important

I had a friend who was studying interior design and I was amazed at how much time they spent just studying how lighting worked. Her studies covered everything from the color of the lights to the spread of the light at different heights and everything in between. If you are like most people, your home office isn’t something you had a professional design. So pay attention to lighting. One thing I’ve found helpful is to use daylight color balanced high powered CFL bulbs. The daylight color helps keep you alert because it matches what you’d have outside. A lot of people don’t like the CFL bulbs because they often seem under powered, but if you get an 85 watt CFL bulb you’ll get a lot more light than you’ll get from a 100 or even 150 watt traditional lightbulb.

3. Control Sound

Sound can be a big distraction in a home office, so think about whether you are trying to setup a workspace right next to a squeaky furnace fan or some other distraction. If you are in a room with a bare floor, you might find that putting down a rug helps absorb some of the sound and echoes. If you have a lot of traffic in a room above you head, you might consider insulating the ceiling to cut down on some of the noise.

If you have distracting sounds that you can’t block, you might consider playing some type of ambient sound to help cover up the distraction. This only works up to a point, but if you are trying to cover up a light conversation on the other side of the wall, ocean or rain sounds might do the trick.

4. Ergonomics

Typically you want your arms to bend at the elbows at 90 degrees, so adjust your desk or chair to keep from needing to reach up or down to type on your keyboard. Your wrists should be straight. Your monitor should be placed so you don’t have to tilt your head up or down to see it comfortably. OSHA has a lot of information on how to arrange an ergonomic workspace, but just paying a little attention to how your body feels and making adjustments can go a long ways.

5. Invest in a Chair

Go ahead and invest in a good chair. “Invest” doesn’t necessarily mean “spend lots of money on,” but it does mean to put effort into finding something that is comfortable and works well for you. My office chair is over 10 years old, but I remember it took me about 6 months to find one that I actually liked after I started looking. It has been well worth it not because it was an expensive chair, but because I made sure it was exactly right for what I needed. If you don’t like your chair, you won’t want to sit in it and it is hard to get work done if the piece of furniture you have the most contact with isn’t a good fit for you.

Quick whats the most lived-in and perhaps the most shame-inducing room in your home? If youre like most people, its the kitchen. Your kitchen sees more action than other rooms because in addition to food storage and meal prep, its often where kids drop backpacks, do homework, mom and dad manage the mail and family calendar and Fido takes his meals too. Theres a lot going on in there so its easy for such a busy space to get out of control quickly and it may even be embarrassing enough that you dont want guests to see. Here are five tips to get your kitchen in tiptop shape in time for summer.

Manage the Mail

Mail is one of the most common ongoing headaches Americans face because no matter what you do, it just wont stop coming. Manilla helps you manage bills, subscriptions, coupons and loyalty programs but the mailman will still visit you every day. Putting a mail management system in place is easy and will keep you guest-ready all year.

• First choose a spot for your mail to live until its processed. A simple basket or bin will do just fine. If youre short on countertop space, get a basket that hangs on the wall.

• Next, set up small containers or clipboards for each type of paper you receive, again using the wall or the side of the fridge if necessary. Common categories are bills and other action items, things to file, items for others in your household and magazines and catalogs. Note: The spot for magazines and catalogs should be near where you tend to sit and read.

• Finally, create a habit of processing your mail regularly. Even if you cant do it every day, be sure you give it your attention two to three times per week so your inbox doesnt overflow.

Contain the Cabinets

Cups, glasses and mugs seem to magically multiply until one day youre putting dishes away and realize theres no room for your favorite tumbler. Empty out the cabinet where you keep drink ware and I bet youll be surprised at how many you own. First, sort by type, then go through each type, discarding the ones that are chipped, cracked, faded, or just plain old and no longer important to you.

Once youve reduced the number of cups, mugs and glassware you have, put them away according to what you use most often. If youre a coffee or tea drinker, put your mugs on the lowest shelf and other less-used items up high. If youre a wine or martini drinker, consider adding an inexpensive stemware rack on the underside of your upper cabinets to free up interior shelf space. For tall items such as reusable water bottles and travel coffee cups, store and stack them on their sides using Fridge Binz clear acrylic stacking wine bottle holders.

Refresh the Refrigerator

First, remove everything, checking for freshness and expiration dates. Toss out anything old, moldy, hairy, stinky or that you just cant identify. Group whats left into families that make sense for you such as sandwich meats, produce, condiments, leftovers, cheeses, beverages, etc.

While the fridge is empty, clean the inside with warm soapy water. Replace the families of items into the fridge in their groups, containerizing items when appropriate.

Small stacking shelves, under-shelf baskets and plain old basic plastic containers work wonders for grouping and maximizing space in the fridge. I group my cheeses in a disposable Gladware container (which Ive cleverly named the cheese box.) Because I keep all my varieties of cheese together in one box, I always know how much I have, plus it keeps really small hunks of deliciousness from getting lost.

Add a turntable (lazy susan) to the top shelf, preferable one with a high lip to keep items from tumbling off. I have the 13-inch Spintray by Romanoff and its perfect for keeping oils, peanut butter, coffee creamer and pickles close at hand with just a spin. Not only does a turntable keep items easily accessible, it also prevents them from getting pressed against the back wall of the refrigerator and freezing solid. Bonus!

De-Junk the Junk Drawer
When it comes to junk drawers, I prefer the term utility drawer because these drawers contain lots of helpful stuff you need all the time on the main level of your house. Trouble is they can become black holes of clutter which makes it hard to find the good stuff when you need it. If your utility drawer is overflowing heres how to wrangle it into submission quickly:

• Empty the drawer and give it a quick once-over with an all-purpose household cleaner.
• Toss anything that you dont use (or forgot was in there.) Remember this is NOT the place to be stashing kids fast food toys and a thousand pens.
• Relocate paper items such as menus and coupons into a magnetic sorter box on the side of your refrigerator.
• Add drawer a divider to compartmentalize the space. It doesnt matter whether you choose plastic, bamboo, metal mesh or clear acrylic, as long as it fits the drawer, you can make it work.

If you dont have an extra kitchen drawer to hold all those handy small things, try using the inside of a cabinet door instead. One of my clients lives in a small 60s ranch house that lacks ample drawer space. Using clear acrylic boxes attached with 3M Command Adhesive strips, I created a utility drawer equivalent on the inside of her pantry doors. Now she has a spot to store all the other must-have-nearby items without sacrificing a drawer.

As Manillas Chief Technology officer and employee #3, I have been a Manilla user from the beginning. One of the features that hooked me early on is the ability to maintain an electronic filing cabinet of my important documents. I have not been disappointed. I thought Id share some real experiences where my Manilla document filing cabinet has come to the rescue and saved me time and hassle.

First, my home office and filing cabinet are less cluttered. Previously I went through the mail each day and piled up important documents in preparation for a twice a month review, the bill paying and filing session (usually on the weekend when more fun activities are calling). Now my mailbox is mostly filled with advertising flyers and pamphlets. My important documents are filed on Manilla. A couple of months ago, I spent two hours going through the file cabinet in my home office and purged my banking, credit card, and bills folders. It was a great feeling and for the first time in years, my file cabinet is half full. Now if only I could upload the remaining documents to Manilla (e.g., birth certificates, tax returns).

Another positive experience was when my husband and I recently re-financed our home. Interest rates were at an all-time low and we wanted to act quickly. The mortgage broker emailed an online application and requested a number of documents. I was required to send bank and brokerage statements for all of our accounts for the last two months, copies of our current mortgage statements, and paycheck receipts. I felt a real sense of accomplishment when I was able to complete everything asked of me online and in less than an hour. My bank, brokerage and mortgage statements were on Manilla and easy to access and forward on to the broker. My paycheck receipts were also available electronically on my employers website. We found that the more responsive we were the quicker the broker took action on our behalf. Our refinance application was started and submitted within two days record breaking based on our past experience!