E-Mail This Article to a Friend Money talks With Tax Day approaching, it’s time to organize your finances BY CHRISTINE JUNGE

Every year around this time — when New Year’s resolutions come face to face with the taxman — we vow to get our checkbooks balanced and to figure out how much money we really spend on Frappuccinos. But each year we fail to do so, and we’ve figured out why: because we don’t have the finance-organizing products we need. So consider relaxing your purse strings for one more week, and invest in these products. We’re betting they’ll pay off in the end.

If you’re a little scared of the process, you may want to ease yourself into exploring your money issues, therapy-style, with Suze Orman’s Financial Guidebook: Put the 9 Steps to Work (Three Rivers Press, 2002; $11.95), available at the Harvard/MIT Coop. This workbook gives you a place to record your expenditures and earnings, as well as advice on how to "face your fears and create new truths." Similarly, Lynne Twist’s The Soul of Money: Transforming your Relationship with Money and Life (W.W. Norton, 2003; $25.95), also at the Coop, asks you to figure out what you really want from your money by taking a step back from the consumerist society and looking within.

Most books recommend that you take the time to record each and every purchase you make. But maybe you’re the type who’s more likely to follow that advice if you have a pretty journal in which to write. If so, head over to Pluto, where you’ll find some funky journals that are small enough to carry around every day, like one in red canvas with a silver binding ($26), or a package of four pocket-size journals ($10.95) in complementary colors with oversize spiral bindings.

For those of you who are more techno-savvy than literary, Best Buy has an array of finance software, like Quicken 2004 Basic and Microsoft Money 2004 Standard ($29.99 each), that promises to make balancing your budget painless. Hey, if the computer can do the math for us, we’re sold.

Once you’ve begun to get a handle on things, you may find that you need to organize your bill-paying space to stay on track. At Staples, you’ll find a three-tier letter sorter ($7.99) in black-metal mesh. The store also has cool accordion folders for keeping your files orderly, like the one with a hard outer case, Impressionist-type flowers, and a silver handle and clasp ($10.99).

One of our favorite tools reminds us that no matter how scary the world of finance seems, it can be boiled down to a few words. Urban Outfitters sells Isabella Francesco’s How To Save Money: Guaranteed (Black Lab Productions, 2003; $10), which has the same two words typed on each of its 400 or so pages: "Spend less."

Where find it:

• Best Buy, various locations; www.bestbuy.com.

• Harvard/MIT Coop, 1400 Mass Ave, Cambridge, (617) 499-2000.

• Pluto, 603 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, (617) 522-0054; 215 Elm Street, Somerville, (617) 666-2005.

• Staples, various locations; www.staples.com.

• Urban Outfitters, 361 Newbury Street, Boston, (617) 236-0088; 11 JFK Street, Cambridge, (617) 864-0070; www.urbanoutfitters.com.