Next Level Adulting

 I was going to blog about this yesterday, but got distracted and the thought slipped my mind. Remembered it a few hours after when I was, well... adulting. If I new there was a next level to "adulting" in your 20s, I could have saved myself from the pain I've been going through the past few weeks. 

If you're in your 20s or even younger, I have one important advise for you -- keep your affairs all in order. The only thing I have in order are... my photos. Majority (I can't claim all) of my digital photos are in proper folders and kept in Google Photos. I used to store them in countless CDs, but after Typhoon Ondoy I have been putting them on the cloud. Well, managing photos is the easiest of the lot. Managing countless documents and papers requires skill and a lot of patience. 

Here's a general list of what you need to keep in order:

1. Medical records

2. Utility Bills

3. Car/vehicle documents (OR/CR, maintenance records)

4. Property records (mortgage, title, real property tax records)

5. Bank accounts 

6. Employment records (or business papers)

7. Travel documents (passport, visa etc.)

8. NSO Certificates (birth, marriage etc.)

9. School documents (diploma, transcript of records)

10. Legal documents (contracts, affidavits, SPAs etc.)

11. IDs (license, TIN, voter's etc.)

My idea of organizing documents was to put them in folders/envelops. Sweetie leveled it up and put them in clear folders so it's easier to find. Good thing we'd spend time organizing papers whenever we went home. It made it easier to manage things remotely. Miggy just had to find the right documents for car registration and paying real property tax. 

My Mom was really good at managing. Her long banking career was interrupted only because of me (I was fragile since birth hehe). She had a proper filing cabinet and an enviable filing system. I remember she started purging documents after Daddy passed away. I've had to rebuild her system the past two weeks. It was hard especially since the papers were not properly kept. I did discover though that most utility companies have online customer portals now. That helped a lot especially for bills that were missing. 

I feel so accomplished after rebuilding my Mom's documents. I still need to find a couple of things and I hope I don't uncover more unpaid stuff. The boys are taking care of the docs for our homes. We're trying to find the best way to file everything properly. It really gets gnarly when you don't organize often. I digitized all of my Mom's bills and now I'm asking her if she had a pool installed because there were two months last year when her water bill was 5x than usual. 

And having everything organized is a good way to understand how you could live better. My cardiologist forced me to organize all my medical records so it would be easier for other doctors to review me. I just share an online folder for my newer doctors. I also have a calendar of when I have to do annual car registration and pay real property tax. Keeping scanned copies of all your docs also helps. 

Oh, now I understand when elders used to tell me that high school is the best part of your life. :)

#BeKind #StaySafe #VoteWisely