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So, first things first - I made a list of my "irregular" bills. These are bills that come up once or twice a year (such as insurance payments, membership dues, etc.) and logged them in my irregular bill and payment checklist. I will get bills mailed or emailed before these things are due, but it's nice see at a glance what's coming up each month that is typically unplanned for in a regular monthly budget. We actually have a savings account labeled "bi-yearly bills" so that we're saving for these payments all year and they're not an unexpected hiccup in our monthly cash flow. Best idea I ever had.
Next, I switched everything over to paperless. This was a really hard choice. While I love technology and check my email daily, I am having a hard time knowing that I'm now depending on my email to let me know when a bill is due. It will be worth it though, I'm sure. I have one email address that's a personal email that I use only for teaching related newsletters, family/friend correspondence, and bills/other important online accounts. Everything else that I sign up for goes to my "junk mail" account, which I still check daily. This makes me feel at least a little bit better, knowing that I won't "lose" any important bill reminders amongst the junk I subscribe to.
Bills that are on a monthly pay schedule, and are due on the same day of each month, I log on my bill and payment checklist. I can then check off each month when I pay the bill so I know that it's taken care of. Did you know that you can change your payment due date for most bills online? I just discovered this on a credit card company's bill pay website and am now noticing it elsewhere. This is a really nice feature of having an online account for bills - that way you can change the date yourself to something more convenient.
I have used my online calendars (with Cozi and Google Calendar) to schedule bill reminders for myself. I can set up a reminder to be emailed or texted to me at a time that I specify. I think I need to start doing this again. My mind has been mush lately with everything that's going on at work. With Google Calendar you can create a category labeled "bills" and all of your bills that you put into your calendar will be labeled the same color. You can also set them as recurring so you don't have to put them in for every month of the year. Very convenient if you're willing to take the time to set it up.
Some companies will waive fees or reduce your interest rate if you set up auto-pay. I have auto-pay set up for our internet service. It saves me $3.50 a month that they wanted to charge as a "convenience fee". I know the amount that they're going to take out each month, so I had no problem signing up for auto-pay. Our student loan companies offer interest rate reduction for setting up auto-pay. We haven't decided to set that one up yet though due to the amount that we pay each month.
Add bill paying to your weekly schedule so it's done regularly. Collect all of your bills and sit down to pay them each week. I have chosen Thursdays for my bill paying day.
Do you have a bill paying system or schedule in your home? I would love to hear what you do in your household when it comes to paying bills! Please share your tips!
Yeesh - it's intense!
ReplyDeleteThe best thing I ever did for my bills was to make them all due around the same time. So my mortgage and HOA are due on the 5th (because they don't let me pick my due date) and ALL utilities, (power, water, gas, phones, internet, etc.) are due on the 20th. (Most places let you change the due date if you just call and ask.)
These are all set up in my credit union's free online bill pay. So twice a month I go down the list and set them to pay. I spend no more than 10 minutes/month doing this.
I also have almost everything set up for e statements, so they come to my e-mail inbox and I file them electronically when I get them.
It took me many years to finally come up with a system that works for me. Now paying bills is less of a hassle, which is nice seeing that it is the least fun thing to do each week!
ReplyDeleteWhen I decided to finally set up e statements and paperless billing and bill pay I set up a separate email account for my bills. It is just like my regular gmail account except I added blz (for bills) before the @. Now any and everything to do with bills goes to that emai. I get notifications on my phone when bills are coming due and when payments are received.
Also on my toolbar I have a folder named Bills. Inside the folder I have bookmarked my bank, and all the bills that I pay directly through the site. Just one click and I am there and ready to set up the payment.
Then I pay bills the same time each week. When bills that still come in the mail come in, they all go in one spot. I then take a notebook that I have written out bills and their due dates. I am visual and like to be able to check it off. So it will say March and then list all the bills in order and when they are due and what's due. I then mark each one off with the date it was paid.
I know it sounds like a lot, but seeing that I am set each month this way, I just pull it out and check things off. Nothing gets missed!
Before we used to get all of the bills in the mail, but we have gone paperless, and started doing automatic pay on some of the bills. For example the ones we know what the amount will be every month (Car, mortgage, life insurance, student loans) We keep a spreadsheet since we recently started following the Dave Ramsey method. Our spreadsheet is broken down by the two pay periods and what needs to get paid. When payday comes around I just follow the spreadsheet on what needs to get paid, and we also use Microsoft Money to budget. It makes it real easy and fast to pay bills.
ReplyDeleteI have gone paperless for the most part. There are only a couple that we still get paper from and it's only because one doesn't have that option & I really do like to have the car insurance papers every time.
ReplyDeleteI have pay bills on my calendar every Monday. I am to the point where I can usually only do it every other week based on when I get paid. I have certain bills that are paid with my 1st paycheck of the month and then a list of bills paid with the 2nd paycheck of the month. I only have 1 automatic bill, the rest I must manually pay, but all the info is there, I just have to say when to pay.
I keep everything in a binder. There is a list of when each bill is paid and then I have a divider with a pocket for each bill. I use to keep the paperwork in there, but now they are just there because there is no paperwork. I also keep a handwritten list of when each bill category is paid and how much. I like to see how much we are paying on bills that change every month (most of ours do). I have tried to track this in excel too, but I'm not good at keeping up with it.
As I pay each bill I also write on my calendar exactly when it will be deducted from the bank account. I also print out a confirmation for every bill when I set them up. I've learned to at least keep the paperwork until it clears the bank. I just keep these in one of the folders labeled pending. I've been filing them away, but I will probably stop that soon.
This system has worked for me for a couple of years now. I will probably continue it because it is all in one place.
I use Quicken to keep track of a lot of my bills. I set up reminders for a week before they are due since that is when I mail them. I am only paperless on my student loans because I am supposed to get some sort of discount but I still mail the bill in. My mother works for the postal service so her job relies on people mailing stuff.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading all these posts on paying bills im convinced that your banking system is vastly different to ours in SA there are precious little things that do not get paid either on debit order (do you have this?) or electronically. And no one I know pays or even has a cheque book! you can even pay your parents or friends via electronic payment or set payment order so everything gets paid on the date you want to pay for everything and nothing gets left behind. The only payment left over is for food and we pay that by debit card at the shops when we go. More often than not I dont have cash on me and its normally only an issue when I do the washing as those machines take cash and I almost always forget to keep that cash but over the last two months or so we have worked out how to keep the cash available and so thats not a problem anymore either. We also keep envelopes in our safe with money for holidays or outing we need to save for. We dont often do this but if we get payment from someone in cash we normally put this in the envelopes in the safe. Good luck with all this organising paying bills is such a pain Im glad our electronic systems here are so helpful!
ReplyDeleteI just discovered your blog today and I'm already obsessed. I'm sitting here at work (as a bored receptionist) plotting my plans to organize my home! I have a system for paper clutter but it's flawed and your tips are amazing! And I LOVE the financial organization advice! I don't like the digital/online/apps at all because no one program ever has all the features I'm looking for. So I usually just stick to my own, homemade print outs. But mine are boring and ugly. Thanks for the inspiration! mrsangelawood (at) yahoo (dot) com
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