Sign up for my Juicy Jems newsletter and get my free 8-page workbook, Putting the FUN in Functional!
What do YOU do to remember to pay the bills?
Wouldn’t it be nice if bills just paid themselves?
But they don’t. So you have systems.
Now. Before you say, “But it’s a total wreck, Jen. It’s really not a system, it’s just a big ol’ pile,” stop for a moment. It *is* a system. It may not be photo-ready or tidy or glamorous, but. BUT, if it’s all stuff that…
- is in a reasonably predictable location
- that you can find most of the time and
- that you remember to do with B+ accuracy or better
…it’s a system. Even if it’s a total mess. Yay, you! So go easy here. You’re a work in progress.
Here’s what I do to remember to pay my bills
What is currently working well for me:
Oooh. Transparency is scary. Here goes.
I double-schedule payments on my calendar. I practically need bill-paying thugs who threaten my kneecaps in order to remember to pay bills on time. Extreme, I know. I use Google calendar and I schedule a “day event” that appears at the top of my screen.
In addition, I schedule an actual appointment with myself at a time of day when I know I’ll be in my office. I learned this from experience – scheduling bill paying on days I was out and – whoops.
I triple-schedule the really important bills. Yup. In order to avoid a credit card interest rate on par with my age, I triple-schedule my bill-paying appointments. All these reminders assure that I absolutely, positively do not miss a due date.
I gotta see it. When that bill-paying appointment rolls around, two big pop up reminders appear on my screen one right after the other. They’re practically impossible to miss. And they’re really annoying. “All right, all right,” I say to my computer. “I’ll pay them now!” (I’ll bet I’m not the only one who talks to her computer.)
The absolutely not-optional thing. You know by now that I’m pretty accommodating and malleable about systems. But there’s one thing that I am stern with myself on: I open my bills the day they arrive and schedule all those appointments I mention above. I do not pass go or collect $200 until they’re safely in my calendar – or they will get forgotten.
The non-environmental thing. I must have paper bills. I am primarily tactile, so holding the paper bill in my hands makes it real and allows me to physically and mentally process that it is, indeed, a bill. Without that piece of paper, I would probably never pay them on time. Sorry, trees.
What I’m currently working on
The reminder system. I’m still tweaking the Google calendar system. As I write this, I have a bill that’s due today that I totally ignored, because I barely looked at my calendar today. That’s, uhhh, less than ideal.
The danger in my current system is that if I don’t pay the bill today, it drops off my screen the next day and disappears. So I’m working on noticing what would work better for me and will induce less panic.
What do YOU do to remember to pay the bills?
What works really well for you? What are you working on?
Share your insights and ideas! Your comments on your own process are welcome. I also request kindly that you not give advice to me or others unless it’s specifically requested. This makes exploring safe and learning possible for every reader.
1345 days ago,
JoVE said:
e-banking
Seriously. I pay my bills the day they come in but I schedule the payment to go out a couple of days before the due date.
The bill payment system in my e-banking thingamy makes that possible.
So the whole system goes like this: Open paper bill and lay it ON the keyboard. Open online banking. Pay bill scheduled for a couple days before due date. File bill.
No reminders needed.
.-= JoVE´s last blog ..You always have time for yoga, mama =-.
1345 days ago,
Sally Evans said:
I put all my bills in a TO PAY folder. Then once a week, I pay them. I try to schedule paying bills once a week. That way everything is together and it takes less time because I do it at one time.
I also like to schedule auto payments for whatever I can like utilities, etc. That way, I just enter those into the checkbook…but it still goes into the folder so I can do that when I pay the bills.
1345 days ago,
Deb Howard Greenleaf said:
I use a tickler file with one folder per week. Once I’ve entered my bills in QuickBooks, I file the bill in the folder for the appropriate due date. Each week, I pull a folder and pay the bills in it. Simple & NOT digital, but effective
1345 days ago,
Margaret Wright said:
I now have most bills scheduled to pay automatically either by credit card or from my bank. Credit cards are the only regular bills not automatically paid. I also use the “pay on-line immediately but schedule near the due date” approach. Back in the paper bills and checks day I accumulated bills in a pile (OK, not completely organized) and paid all that had accumulated on Sunday night — couldn’t go to bed until they were all paid.
1345 days ago,
Darcy said:
I get most of my bill reminders emailed to me, and I set follow up flags with alarms on those emails and/or don’t file them so I see them every day until I pay the bill, and I also set appts on my calendar with email reminders for other bills. I have a couple things on auto payment but those worry me because what if my balance gets too low. But I’m with you on needing multiple reminders.
.-= Darcy´s last blog ..Book: Jacquard’s Web =-.
1345 days ago,
Allie said:
Like many other commenters, I use online banking and ebills for a lot of my bill paying. Scheduling bills through online banking is really similar to your Google Calendar approach; they are assigned to a certain day, and that’s when they’re paid. But for bills that are more, shall we say, demanding (like the cable company billed me the wrong amount and I have to spend 45 minutes on the phone with them to find out the *actual* amount), I schedule a reminder in one of my GTD systems — either Backpack (http://www.backpackit.com) or Things (http://culturedcode.com/things/). Backpack reminders, specifically, can text message or email me on a schedule so that I don’t have to check my calendar to see them.
1345 days ago,
Grace said:
Well, to start with, I pay all my bills at once. Any of them that weren’t due then, I called up and had them change the due date. (Yes, you can do that. Sometimes they charge – and then I throw a hissy fit and refuse to pay the charge, and sometimes they’ll change it anyway, and sometimes I just have to deal with its being out of calendar sequence.)
I go for electronic billing as much as possible – and yes, that led to some expensive OOPSes. So now I have a spreadsheet that I open up every month and use as a checklist. Yep, paid the water bill (ouch). Yep, downloaded and paid the phone bill. Yep… You get the idea.
So I sit down with Quicken, my spreadsheet, and my online bank billpaying system once a month for about 45 minutes, and I’m DONE. Yay!
.-= Grace´s last blog ..Manufacturing authenticity =-.
1345 days ago,
Lisa Wood said:
I pay a lot of my bills online – but it’s easy to forget about them when their on auto-pay. The best system I ever had was a simple grid that I made on a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper. I listed all my bills down the side and the months of the year across the top. Every time I paid a bill I filled in the appropriate spot in the grid.
I’ve often thought of going back to that system – because I’m so visual, and because it WORKED. As great and convenient as technology is, sometimes I need something right in front of me.
1345 days ago,
jennifer said:
@jo – Love this. I will have to see if my back allows scheduling payments. What a great idea.
@Sally and Deb – I’m curious how you remember to do it weekly? Is there a day or time you do it regularly?
@Margaret – Cool!
@Darcy – (laughing) Yes. It sounds like our systems are really similar. I have low-grade paranoia that something may get forgotten. Interesting!
@Allie – I didn’t know you were also a Backpack devotee! Interesting system – sounds like it works!
@Grace – That’s a good point. If they’re all due on the same day, there’s no worrying about if something’s been missed. There’s always the cash flow issue that goes with it, but it sounds great. Hmm…
@Lisa – Agreed. Electronic payments are great – but they’re easy to forget (even when you’ve paid!). I’d be interested to know what happens if you go back to the more visual/tactile system.
1345 days ago,
Lori Paximadis said:
I’m an old-fashioned pen-and-paper calendar person; I have to see it in front of me for it to get done and I have to be able to take it with me. So, since my bills are due at the same time every month, I just make entries for certain days of the month all year when I get a new calendar, and it gets done because my daily routine is to check my calendar first thing every morning when I plan my day.
Any nonregular bills get dropped in the bill basket and are dealt with during my weekly Quicken update/reconciliation bonanza. Keeping everything in a desingated place is key to not losing track for me.
1344 days ago,
Sally Evans said:
Jennifer,
You asked how I remember to pay the bills once a week. I try to do it the same day each week so it is a habit. Usually Monday evenings.
Sometimes it gets put off until the next evening …or the next
if things are busy but I leave the folder out to remind me I need to do it!
1344 days ago,
jennifer said:
@Lori – Knowing that you’re visual makes it so much easier to work *with* that strength. I sometime suspect that the act of writing it down gives us “body memory” that a task is coming up, rather than having do remember it in our brains. Either way, it sounds lieka great system for you – and that’s what matters!
@Sally – Ah! Very cool! So, for you, having a “date” with yourself every Monday night is the way you remember. Hmm.. That’s an interesting idea I might like to try myself!
1343 days ago,
Marguerite said:
Wow, what a wonderful discussion. I’ve been a “work in progress” for many many yrs and at this point I’m one $35.75 pmt AWAY from NO credit card payments! I absolutely can’t believe it. I will be starting on Student loans in the next yr but that DOABLE- good luck all
Marguerite
1293 days ago,
MilkAddict said:
I agree!
http://www.milkaddict.com/?p=68
I had some problems sometimes remembering to pay bills on time (especially if you have loans or recurring payments..) and I found a quite nice little application called Chronicle to help with it! I also wrote a little review here if you are interested
cheers
176 days ago,
PattyC said:
I am going to start using a clip board hung somewhat out of site of company at my house but somewhere I would see it during my morning routine, and clip my bills in order of due date, which is highlighted in a fun color (im very tactile as well, it makes it more “real” to me
that way it becomes a reward to take the bill off the clipboard after having paid it, and filing it away!