Money Workout

Money Workout

1) Get the facts (0:00-9:00)
Not looking at your credit report until you take out a loan or make a major purchase is like waiting until the night before your Tibetan trek to find your passport. Make sure everything is in order.

If it's not, you have time to respond calmly and effectively when you see that there is an erroneous Citibank balance of $8,600 on it. Or to scream, like I did.

2) Face the tax monster (9:00 to 14:00)
October is the last chance you have to adjust your tax withholdings and have it make a difference, says personal finance writer Ilyce Glink, author of "50 Simple Steps You Can Take to Disaster Proof Your Finances." To make sure you don't come up short in April, use the withholding calculator on the IRS Website.

Have a recent pay stub handy. This uncanny little tool will tell you how far behind (or ahead) you are -- and then exactly which lines to fix on your W4 form. For a more detailed level of instruction in that impenetrable IRS lingo, you can download Form 919, but we don't have time for that.

3) Educate yourself about 529 plans (14:00 to 25:00)
Violet Woodhouse, a certified financial planner (CFP), attorney and certified family law specialist in California, says she's constantly surprised by how many couples haven't bothered to set up a so-called 529 plan to pay for their children's college education. Given that a child who entered kindergarten in the mid-90s could have a tuition bill of about $100,000 (public college) or way more (private), you might want to get on that, huh? Especially now that withdrawals for qualified educational costs (tuition, some living expenses) are tax-free! Dude! Why even wait until you have kids?

4) Take a coffee break (25:00 to 30:00)
Breathe. Have a Snickers bar. Call your mom. Look at how much you've accomplished in just a half an hour -- it's more than you dreamed you'd do in a week, isn't it? See, you're a money maniac and you didn't even know it. Look in the mirror. Play air guitar. You rock!

5) Get a grip on your spending (30:00 to 45:00)
"The most important number in your financial landscape is what it costs you to live NOW," says Tom Grzymala, a certified financial planner and president of Alexandria Financial Associates in Virginia. Until you know where the cash flow goes, you can't put your house in order. "Buy something like MSN Money," he said, completely unprompted by me, an MSN columnist, "or Quicken," he added. "You go to the Web site, order it, boom!"

Woodhouse was equally adamant that there is no time better spent than the few minutes it takes to jot down your expenses, although she advocates the paper method. "Don't do it at the end of the day," she advises. "Write down every dime you spend, every penny, in a notebook or check register."

It's tedious, yes, but invest just these 15 minutes a day and you'll learn that financial awareness is financial power. (If you're allergic to tedium, click here on Money Plus, a software component of MSN 8. It lets you download and track most expenses automatically.)

Once you know where your money goes, "now you're in a position to make decisions," Woodhouse points out. Until then, you're just scrambling.

6) Deal with death (45:00 to 60:00)
The unfortunate truth about that old "death and taxes" saying is that people have enough trouble with their taxes, let alone the other thing. Unless you need sophisticated estate planning, Grzymala suggests facing the inevitable by setting up a durable power of attorney, a medical power of attorney, and a basic will.

Many estate attorneys will draw up these documents for as little as $300 to $500, he says, a relatively small investment, considering how many financial headaches they can avert. No, you can't do all that in 15 minutes, but get the ball rolling by a) figuring out who you want to hold your powers of attorney ("Ask someone you trust," Grzymala says, "someone your own age or younger") and b) calling them to talk it over.