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"Clean Out Your Wallet 1. Don&amp;#039;t carry too much cash ... Carry a maximum of $100 in cash. That&amp;#039;s enough for an emergency but not so much that you&amp;#039;d be devastated if your wallet is lost or stolen. 2. ... or too many credit cards. Most of us need only two: one primary credit card and a backup (in case a retailer doesn&amp;#039;t accept your go-to). Keep any additional cards in a safe place at home. It&amp;#039;s also smart to keep photocopies of your cards tucked away at home so you can easily access the numbers if you lose a card. 3. Keep gift cards at home. Gift cards are just like cash. Unless you know you&amp;#039;re going shopping with the specific purpose of using one, leave it behind. If your wallet is stolen, they&amp;#039;re one of the easiest things for a thief to use. 4. Carry your driver&amp;#039;s license. It&amp;#039;s the only ID you need. Any document with sensitive info \u2014 like your social security card, birth certificate, or passport \u2014 should be kept in a safe place at home. 5. Add a personal touch. A crazy study found that a picture of a baby or pet makes folks more likely to return a lost wallet, so tuck one in. Control Your Paperwork 6. Save key receipts. Try the Shoeboxed app (free, Shoeboxed.com) for storing receipts. Then you&amp;#039;ll have them to check against your credit card statements and also to track medical expenses (if you can be reimbursed via your health-care spending account) and purchases you may be able to write off (like a laptop). 7. Buy a shredder. Destroy paper receipts and anything else with personal info (like bank, credit-card, and mutual-fund statements) so your trash isn&amp;#039;t a target for identity thieves. 8. Cut down on mail. Most &amp;quot;preapproved&amp;quot; credit-card offers aren&amp;#039;t a safety risk, but they are a pain. Get rid of them at OptOutPrescreen.com. 9. Stash your taxes. Hang on to supporting tax docs like W-2 forms for seven years. And keep your returns (with proof you filed and paid) forever. Never Miss a Payment 10. Keep money emails separate. It&amp;#039;s easy to miss bills in your crowded in-box, so set up a &amp;quot;money stuff&amp;quot; account, like AlexaBills@gmail.com. 11. Have a home base. Make money check-ins easier by linking all your accounts in one spot. I&amp;#039;m partial to LearnVest&amp;#039;s app (free, iTunes), of course.  12. Set calendar alerts. Schedule reminders to review bank and credit card statements (once a week), pay bills (once a month), update your budget (twice a year), and prep your taxes (once a year). Set them and forget about them \u2014 until your calendar pings you, that is. Alexa von Tobel is Cosmo&amp;#039;s financial columnist, author of Financially Fearless, and CEO of LearnVest. This article was originally published as &amp;quot;Cashing In: Are Your Finances a Total Me$$?&amp;quot; in the August 2014 issue of Cosmopolitan. Click here to subscribe to the digital edition! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/career/news/a29440/clean-up-finances/>