---
title: 6 Quick and Easy Money Fixes to Make on Your Days Off
description: Get a budget app to track expenses, check CD rates and insurance coverage, set retirement accounts to auto-rebalance, and start 2015 taxes.
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published: '2015-12-21T14:15:45.000Z'
modified: '2024-05-07T10:25:36.000Z'
section: Personal Finance
word_count: 430
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type: Article
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![Jill Schlesinger](https://img.money.com/2015/12/151221_em_jill-schlesinger_grab_1.png)

If you've got a few days off around the holidays and aren't overwhelmed by family obligations, this is a good time to take care of some quick financial chores. The following ideas are quick hits you can tackle in off hours when businesses are closed; most will take no more than a few minutes.

**1\. Track Your Expenses**

Almost every financial plan starts with this task -- and although most people dread it, but there are now plenty of software programs and apps to help you out. Get a new phone or laptop for the holiday? Consider adding [Mint](https://www.mint.com/), [You Need a Budget](http://www.youneedabudget.com/), Level Money, and Acorns are all easy to use.

**2\. Earn More on Your Safe Money**

The Fed has started to raise interest rates, but they are still low. With a little work you may be able to squeeze out some extra money. Shop around at credit unions, which tend to offer better interest than most banks, and go to [www.depositaccounts.com](http://www.depositaccounts.com/) to find longer-term CDs with low penalties. (You can also check out [Money's Best Banks](https://money.com/best-banks/) package for a variety of account options.)

**3\. Put Your Retirement Account on Autopilot**

Even if you have a game plan for your [portfolio allocations](https://money.com/how-much-stock-is-too-much-asset-allocation-for-dummies/), it can be hard to stick to your guns when the markets make big moves. Let technology help you overcome your emotions: Go online and enroll in auto-rebalancing on your 401(k) and other retirement accounts.

**4\. Check Your Property Insurance**

The best time to review your policy is *before* an event occurs, not after. The three biggest mistakes people make with [homeowners insurance](https://money.com/best-home-insurance/) are: 1) under-insuring; 2) shopping by price only and not comparing apples to apples; and 3) not reading policy details before a loss occurs. Pull your insurance policy out of the file cabinet and read it through to make sure your policy details are still what you want.

**5\. Check Your Credit Report**

Despite countless data breaches and security warnings, over half of Americans have not checked their credit reports. An easy step is to review your credit report at [annualcreditreport.com](http://annualcreditreport.com/) -- make sure there are no accounts that you haven't opened, because those could be an indicator of [identity theft](https://money.com/best-identity-theft-protection/). (And be sure to change your passwords frequently.)

**6\. Prepare for Next Year's Taxes**

Don't make yourself crazy right now. Just do two things to get yourself prepared for tax season: Pull last year’s return, and create a file for all incoming tax data. That way when your statements arrive in the mail, you have a single place to put them all.

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