online service for ogarnizing debt payment deadline ontime
someone posted about how no matter how disorganized they were,, they always
payed their bills on time...This is an area that Dh and I have had stress
over...Especially since we move dinto this house...Seems like we have been
so busy,, and cluttered that we always manage to forget something...We
always have the money to pay the bill we just manage to overlook one or
misplace one...I know this is going to really mess up our credit...
So, I would like to know some you your tricks ...by this i mean..does anyone
have a specific way of organizing your household bills so that you alway
spay them on time..Do you have a certain organizational box yu put them
in...yadda yadda yadda..I am open to ideas..each time i figure out what
works for me..i get messed up again..so i would ove to hear some new
ideas...
_I have tried various methods. I, too, used to be late a lot. The first
"successful" thing I tried was putting bills in a box when I brought
them from the mailbox. I paid bills twice a month (paydays). I kept a
notebook listing all bills I expected to pay during the month, along
with the due date.
Finally got good enough at it (and paid off enough little bills) that
I now go through mail when I bring it in. Junk mail gets trashed
immediately. (Just started doing this about 3 weeks ago, so I do have
a backlog I have been going through - pile is much lower today.) The
bills are taken from the envelope, paper-clipped to the return
envelope, and put in a file folder on my desk. I still keep the
notebook with expected bills for the month along with due dates. On
payday, I write the checks, put bill and check in envelope, and put
everything in the mailbox. No more late bills. I also check off the
paid bill in my notebook, listing date and amount paid.
There may be simpler ways or more efficient ways, but this method has
worked very well for me, and I am quite proud of myself that I have
overcome the "late bill" syndrome.
I am also on a quest to get out of debt. I have come a long way in
that regard over the past year. If I continue on my plan, I should be
debt-free, except for the house, this time next year. I think the book
(Take Time for Yourself) encourages this, too
_Besides my email there are 2 places I always visit when I'm online - here &
Cheapskate Monthly.
The Cheapskate Monthly site is by the author of the Cheapskate books (and a
bunch of others) - Mary Hunt. There are several free things folks might
find useful there. But the most important aspect, I find, is the Message
Boards - which require a subscription.
The folks there are just as friendly and non-judgmental as the folks here.
Some are folks like me - the only continuing debts I have are the house &
car but money just seems to flow through my hands like water sometimes.
There are also folks there with huge amounts of debt & creditors calling
almost daily.
Most of the folks that post seem to be Christian & you'll frequently see a
responder suggest that a poster ask for God's help. But I've never seen
anyone being pushy about it.
Well, this is long (as usual with me). I just wanted to say that I really
liked the site & have gotten some good ideas from it. If you're trying to
become debt-free or just get a better handle on your money, it's a very
useful friendly site.
http://www.cheapskatemonthly.com
_ I have the luxury of a desk these days. (Well, it's
really a door sitting on two two-drawer filing cabinets, but
it serves just fine as a desk.) So I can sit down at my
desk and sort the mail quickly each day.
I have a desk thing - with trays - it is smoke-colored
plastic and snaps together. I bought it at an Office Depot
(similar to Staples or Office Max).
It has a folder in each tray: they are:
PENDING - stuff I have to keep until something happens
and then I can throw it away. Like: we are due a rebate
check. I keep the copy there, and toss it when we get the
check.
FILING - stuff to be filed. I generally keep up with the
filing.
TO-DO - stuff I should do (but never really do) I don't
put bills here, because I know this is kind of like the
Bermuda Triangle: once items get into the "to-do" folder,
they are never seen again!
COUPONS - coupons
INBOX - where the sorted mail, such as bills, goes. Then
I pay the bills - more or less as they come in.
There have been times when I just paid bills twice a
month: accumulated them, then paid several.
I use Quicken to keep track of finances, and I recently
started downloading transactions from the bank so I no
longer have to enter the charges in Quicken myself - very
nice. I'm going to find out how to pay some bills online
too. But I've not done that yet.
Missk, I'm not working, I have time to do things in a more
or less systematic manner these days.
The only really useful advice I can think of is that
office-supply stores, IMHO, have much better
office-organizing type of stuff than more consumer-oriented
stores. Much more useful stuff.
And it's not un-decorative: my tray-organizer thing is
translucent smoke-colore plastic as is my Rolodex. They're
attractive.
_Our bank has a free service where you can pay your bills by phone. (They
also have an online service, but it is pretty cumbersome) One of the
features allows you to specify due dates. I now sit down every Saturday
morning and get my chequebook up to date (I use Interac instead of
cheques for most things, don't carry my chequebook in my purse, and
never write stuff down! Instead of fretting over it, I decided to be
realistic and just take it off the phone once a week). Once I have done
that, I take all the bills and pay them over the phone, paying them
about 4 days in advance of the due date.
_I don't think I am doing anything novel. I had read quite a few books
on reducing debt and controlling spending, but I wasn't really moved
to change my ways until I heard Dave Ramsey on the radio. I used to
hear him during my drive home from work - found him quite by accident
one evening when I was bored with my usual station. (I am one of those
weirdos who believes such accidents occur because we are ready for
them - when the student is ready, the teacher appears.) Unfortunately,
the station changed his air-time. He is now on from midnight to 5am on
one station, and from noon to 3pm on another. One is during my sleep
time, the other during my work hours. Check his web site,
http://www.financialpeace.com , to see if he airs in your area.
As a result of liking his advice, I finally bought his book, Financial
Peace: Restoring Financial Hope to You and Your Family. I am using his
snowball method (also put forth by other advisors whose books I have
read) of debt reduction. I started having the credit union deduct a
small amount from my paycheck to start my crisis savings. For me, if I
don't see it and don't have easy access to it, it is far less tempting
to use the money. I have cut back in many areas (eating out, new
clothes, books - my weakness, magazines, etc.) in order to put extra
money on credit cards.
I have also used a shareware program - No Bills! Credit Card
Eliminator, download at
http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcod...
to figure out the quickest way to pay off the debts, while staying
within my budget. The program has been worth the $30 to me.
I don't completely follow Ramsey's advice, however. By using the No
Bills software, I found that I could actually pay them off faster and
pay less total interest by paying more than the minimum on *all* the
bills. It just took some fiddling with the figures to find the
quickest way for me. When one is paid off, the amount being paid on
the "gone" bill is then applied to the others. I decided a couple of
year of sacrificing and pinching was worth the possibility of being
almost debt-free. It truly has taken a load off already. And no, I
don't go hungry, and I do indulge once in a while. But I have stuck to
my plan pretty well thus far. I have considered online bill paying,
but sort of in line with Ramsey's philosophy, the hands-on approach
has kept me reminded of what I had done with my financial life and put
the focus on the need for me to stay in control. Once the debt is
conquered, maybe I will go online for the regular monthly expenses.
Now, what does this have to do with clutter? For me, getting behind on
bills, forgetting to pay them, losing them in the mess, etc., is all a
part of living with clutter. Taking control of that one area of my
life has made a big difference, but I haven't generalized that
organization to my housekeeping. l felt totally overwhelmed by the
mess
Then, guess what. Through a serendipitous "accident," I found this NG
(thanks, Melodi in VA). Who knows? Maybe this NG will have the "Dave
Ramsey" effect on my way of keeping house. I certainly hope so.
Bills, cleaning, etc. -- a big part of my problem, I am beginning to
realize, is that I have the misguided notion that if I get it all
done, it should stay that way without my having to do anything. As
someone said here, some maintenance is necessary. That has been a
stumbling block in the past for me. So many of the posts here have
been helpful to me, not only in providing information, but just in
helping me to see that even the little things finally add up.
Gosh, just looked back to see if this was fairly clear and saw how
long it was. Sorry for being so long-winded!