Step Two: On payday, look at section 2 of Monthly Bill Summary to determine which bills need to be paid that payday. Write out your checks for these bills and get them ready to mail. On statement for each bill or in your payment book, write check number and date paid.

Step Three: File all statements in pocket divider corresponding to that bill. When you receive your bank statement and after you reconcile it, also put canceled checks in pocket divider corresponding to that bill. File any correspondence in these pocket dividers.

Read more about Your Checking Account at: http://www.homemoneyhelp.com/checkingaccount.html

One of biggest problems people have with organizing their bills and receipts is not knowing what to keep and what to throw away.

First, there are really four types of files. Personal (bill receipts, etc), tax files (any paperwork that is required for taxes), long term files (mortgages, car contracts, or any other contract) and important papers (will, birth certificates, etc.)

Personal files are files mentioned in Bill Organizer. At end of year, if files aren't too thick you can consolidate them into one folder labeled with year. Examples of things in this category are: monthly insurance statements, credit card statements, mortgage receipts, and any other monthly statement. KEEP THESE RECORDS FOR TWO YEARS.

Tax files can be filed in a folder or accordion folder. These items include: W2 forms, 1099 forms, All tax forms with attachments and any other form that you receive that must be reported on your taxes. KEEP THESE RECORDS FOR THREE YEARS. It is best to keep your previous years tax forms plus three years before that. The IRS only audits back three years. You can destroy older files.

Long Term files include your mortgage or lease agreements, notes on car purchases or any contract that is still in effect. Keep these files in a safe place. KEEP THESE FILES AT LEASE UNTIL THE AGREEMENT HAS ENDED. MY SUGGESTION IS TO KEEP THEM FOR FIVE YEARS AFTER THE AGREEMENT HAS ENDED.

Important papers should be kept together where you can lay your hands on them quickly. You might want to use a safety deposit box or at least a locked drawer. These items include: wills, deeds, trusts, stock certificates, birth and death certificates and any other extremely important documents. KEEP THESE FILES INDEFINITLY.

As you can see this organizer will help you keep everything in order. However, no organizer will be any good if you don't keep up with it.

One tip that will help you keep this organizer neat is to eliminate any paper that doesn't need to be there. Many people keep envelope that bill is received in. You will find that this will clutter your organizer faster than anything else.

It is also not a good idea to fold your receipts or copies of your statements unless you absolutely must to make them fit.

Having a system to file your bills and receipts will make it much easier to know what bills are due and when they are due. Once you know this paying your bills on time is much easier.

Buy & Hold may turn out to be a profitable approach if you intend to hold forever. But we don't live forever, and most people are going to want to sell their investments at some point before forever hits. It's small comfort to know that if you hold your investments for another 20 years, they will make money-especially if you're retired and want to take a cruise next month.

3. Staying Course.

It takes a strong stomach to hang on to an investment when you see it disappearing before your very eyes. Or even when it's up one day and down next. (Like these days, for example.) And once you decide that having to wait for three decades before your investment gets back to square one is not such a great deal, what happens to your Buy & Hold strategy then? It's out window and all you're holding is bag. The much emptier bag.

So what's an investor to do, especially an investor who's really not a professional? For one thing, find a reliable method of gaining information. One that I like is a trend analysis approach that objectifies market behavior. This type of approach is more kinetic in that it doesn't rely on past performance-it relies on past and present performance to indicate a "trend" toward future performance. While that's not infallible in any sense of word, it is a broader range of information than most guides.

Using one of those as a foundation for your strategy, determine a buy point and, most importantly, a sell point for any investment you make. Get comfortable with taking small losses before they turn into big disasters.

There is always risk in investing. However there are ways to minimize risk so you become an investor, not merely a gambler with high hopes for a Buy & Hold approach that many people have now found to have failed them.