As a Mail Carrier, I see on a daily basis people depending on their bills arriving by mail in order to pay them on time. Then when they do not show up on time it becomes the fault of the mail carrier because we are the face of post office. When it comes down to it, the person failing to pay their bills on time are the only ones at fault. If you depend on the mail for getting your bills paid, you are not doing your best to take care of the most important task in keeping your credit and reputation under control.
Today I want to share my personal method of paying my bills that could just save you from getting late fees. I have followed this method for the last 5 years with great success. I am not out to profit from this as I know I could easily make money on educating people on how to properly pay their bill and manage them, but I only want to help those who want to be helped. This does take some time to initially set up, but once you have it going you will spend much less time getting things done.
Lets get started! First, find yourself a binder or a notebook. I started out in a notebook but now use a binder as it seems to be easier. Gather up all of the bills you pay out every month. Start out on a scratch piece of paper and write down all of your bills with the due date and the minumium/average payment. Once you have them all written out organize it by due date. Also if you have credit cards, add their current balance to this. This requires calling them up and getting the most current information. Here is an example of how it will look:
1st House $950
2nd Electric $65
10th Capital One $30 $2,500
25th Gas $45
So I name this page "Current Bills"
My next page consists of all account numbers for each bill. Using the order of the bills from the previous page write down the name of the bill, the phone number to contact them and the account number associated with the biller. Here is an example of how it will look:
Best Buy 888-574-1301 0000-1111-0123-3456
Old Navy 877-222-6868 2222-1234-0098-7766
I name this page "Account Information"
I use my bank to pay all of my bills online. I strongly suggest using this method because it saves postage fees and check fees. It also allows you to get your bills done quickly and easily each check. I have access to my pay stub a week before I get paid, so I set up my bills online a week before they go out. If you use checks by mail, I strongly suggest making the following page. Set up a page listing all billers in the same order as we have been doing. Now add the address to where the bill must be sent to be paid. This can also be done with the last page so you have the account number and the address together. You can use as many pages as it takes for each section. Here is an example adding the address with the last page.
Best Buy 888-574-1301 0000-1111-0123-3456
PO BOX 1234
Carson City AZ 50212
The next page I use for credit card inquires. I leave 2 pages for this. I do label it with Date, Card, Points, Balance, and Available. I try to check my balance information at least once a month. This helps to see how much your balances are actually going down, wich is not much and is quite sickening when you figure out how much your are paying every month vs. how much they go down! I fill it in as I use the space. Here is an example of how it will look:
Date Card PTS Balance Available
8/10/17 Cap 1 0 $2500 $1,000
Next page I have to figure out the cost of daycare each month. I write out each month and which days/weeks I need care as I pay by the week most of the time, but there are times there is no school for a day or a week or in summer for 3 months. So this amount is almost alwas changing so it is good to know exactly how much is needed for the whole year. Here is an example of this page:
October
7th $65
14th $65
21st $65
28th $65
Next I leave a couple of blank pages just incase there is anything else I want to add later on. Now we are at the important pages. Figure out your paydays and write them down, one on each page. So I was paid January 13, that gets 1 page and I was paid January 27th that goes on the back of the first page and so on for the whole year. So now using the list of bills you need to pay out you can figure out what bills need to be paid at what check. I do my best to split them as evenly as possible. That way you always have close to the same amount of spending at each check. The one thing I have found is that you have to be careful of when you pay your credit card bills. If you pay it too close to the due date for the previous month, it may still be credited for the previous month and it will appear as though you made two payments in one month and no payments the following month. Always give at leat 8 to 10 days after the due date to pay the following months payment. Here is an example of how your page will look:
January 13th Pay: $2,400
14th Best Buy $30
14th Cap 1 $200
17th Cabelas $50
19th Gas $40
21st Cable $51
Add all of your bills up and put the total at the bottom of the bills. subtract the bills from your pay to get the total amount of money you will have for the pay period.
Now you have all of your bills accounted for between each payday. I get paid every 2 weeks so my bills get split into 2 checks. The week before I get paid I check my pay then go into my online banking and set the bills up to be paid. I already know what I am paying and how much. As I set them up to be paid on payday, I check them off on the list so I know it is paid. Then after payday comes I write clear next to the check mark when it has cleared out of the bank.
There is plenty of room to add notes or I always use the space to subtract the bills not cleared from the amount of money in the bank in order to keep track of my spending. I do not use a chek book so I often check the bank balance vs. the cleared bills to know what we have for spending.
Twice a year I get paid an extra pay check in a month. This happens to throw off my entire system. So twice a year when this happens. I must rearrange my bills to fit into the next 6 month period. Another option is to completely skip that 3rd check and not pay any bills. I have nver been fully successfull doing this as there is usually something due before the next check, but it can be the easier of the two ways to change the bills around. I usually only fill in two months worth of payments on the payment section because things do change. You migt get a new bill or pay one off. Plus it does take some work at that 6 month interval to switch things around. In my opinion, it is well worth the time and effort.
Each year I add new pages in front of the previous year so I always have access to the current year, yet can reference to previous years when needed.
So, having a Bill Book truly can save your credit and reputation by spending some time and learning your bills. Taking the time to have everything in once place saves time and money. As with your paper bills, keep this in a safe place so that unwanted people will not get ahold of your personal information and us it against you in any way. Do not put SS#'s or birthdates in your book. That is way too much info to keep in one place.
I hope this has been helpful and descriptive enough to understand. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about this method.
Wyoming Girl
Today I want to share my personal method of paying my bills that could just save you from getting late fees. I have followed this method for the last 5 years with great success. I am not out to profit from this as I know I could easily make money on educating people on how to properly pay their bill and manage them, but I only want to help those who want to be helped. This does take some time to initially set up, but once you have it going you will spend much less time getting things done.
Lets get started! First, find yourself a binder or a notebook. I started out in a notebook but now use a binder as it seems to be easier. Gather up all of the bills you pay out every month. Start out on a scratch piece of paper and write down all of your bills with the due date and the minumium/average payment. Once you have them all written out organize it by due date. Also if you have credit cards, add their current balance to this. This requires calling them up and getting the most current information. Here is an example of how it will look:
1st House $950
2nd Electric $65
10th Capital One $30 $2,500
25th Gas $45
So I name this page "Current Bills"
My next page consists of all account numbers for each bill. Using the order of the bills from the previous page write down the name of the bill, the phone number to contact them and the account number associated with the biller. Here is an example of how it will look:
Best Buy 888-574-1301 0000-1111-0123-3456
Old Navy 877-222-6868 2222-1234-0098-7766
I name this page "Account Information"
I use my bank to pay all of my bills online. I strongly suggest using this method because it saves postage fees and check fees. It also allows you to get your bills done quickly and easily each check. I have access to my pay stub a week before I get paid, so I set up my bills online a week before they go out. If you use checks by mail, I strongly suggest making the following page. Set up a page listing all billers in the same order as we have been doing. Now add the address to where the bill must be sent to be paid. This can also be done with the last page so you have the account number and the address together. You can use as many pages as it takes for each section. Here is an example adding the address with the last page.
Best Buy 888-574-1301 0000-1111-0123-3456
PO BOX 1234
Carson City AZ 50212
The next page I use for credit card inquires. I leave 2 pages for this. I do label it with Date, Card, Points, Balance, and Available. I try to check my balance information at least once a month. This helps to see how much your balances are actually going down, wich is not much and is quite sickening when you figure out how much your are paying every month vs. how much they go down! I fill it in as I use the space. Here is an example of how it will look:
Date Card PTS Balance Available
8/10/17 Cap 1 0 $2500 $1,000
Next page I have to figure out the cost of daycare each month. I write out each month and which days/weeks I need care as I pay by the week most of the time, but there are times there is no school for a day or a week or in summer for 3 months. So this amount is almost alwas changing so it is good to know exactly how much is needed for the whole year. Here is an example of this page:
October
7th $65
14th $65
21st $65
28th $65
Next I leave a couple of blank pages just incase there is anything else I want to add later on. Now we are at the important pages. Figure out your paydays and write them down, one on each page. So I was paid January 13, that gets 1 page and I was paid January 27th that goes on the back of the first page and so on for the whole year. So now using the list of bills you need to pay out you can figure out what bills need to be paid at what check. I do my best to split them as evenly as possible. That way you always have close to the same amount of spending at each check. The one thing I have found is that you have to be careful of when you pay your credit card bills. If you pay it too close to the due date for the previous month, it may still be credited for the previous month and it will appear as though you made two payments in one month and no payments the following month. Always give at leat 8 to 10 days after the due date to pay the following months payment. Here is an example of how your page will look:
January 13th Pay: $2,400
14th Best Buy $30
14th Cap 1 $200
17th Cabelas $50
19th Gas $40
21st Cable $51
Add all of your bills up and put the total at the bottom of the bills. subtract the bills from your pay to get the total amount of money you will have for the pay period.
Now you have all of your bills accounted for between each payday. I get paid every 2 weeks so my bills get split into 2 checks. The week before I get paid I check my pay then go into my online banking and set the bills up to be paid. I already know what I am paying and how much. As I set them up to be paid on payday, I check them off on the list so I know it is paid. Then after payday comes I write clear next to the check mark when it has cleared out of the bank.
There is plenty of room to add notes or I always use the space to subtract the bills not cleared from the amount of money in the bank in order to keep track of my spending. I do not use a chek book so I often check the bank balance vs. the cleared bills to know what we have for spending.
Twice a year I get paid an extra pay check in a month. This happens to throw off my entire system. So twice a year when this happens. I must rearrange my bills to fit into the next 6 month period. Another option is to completely skip that 3rd check and not pay any bills. I have nver been fully successfull doing this as there is usually something due before the next check, but it can be the easier of the two ways to change the bills around. I usually only fill in two months worth of payments on the payment section because things do change. You migt get a new bill or pay one off. Plus it does take some work at that 6 month interval to switch things around. In my opinion, it is well worth the time and effort.
Each year I add new pages in front of the previous year so I always have access to the current year, yet can reference to previous years when needed.
So, having a Bill Book truly can save your credit and reputation by spending some time and learning your bills. Taking the time to have everything in once place saves time and money. As with your paper bills, keep this in a safe place so that unwanted people will not get ahold of your personal information and us it against you in any way. Do not put SS#'s or birthdates in your book. That is way too much info to keep in one place.
I hope this has been helpful and descriptive enough to understand. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about this method.
Wyoming Girl
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