Money management is more than just bringing in income and not overspending. It’s about actually managing the expenses being paid and monitored. Being a busy parent means bill management and bill payments are the worst time of day for you. However, it does not have to be the biggest challenge you have yet to overcome. Here are 3 bill management techniques you can implement today.
Decide On a System to Organize Your Bills
The first part of organizing your bills is to identity what your bills are, when they are due, and how much is due. If you’ve created a spreadsheet for your family budget, this is pretty much half done for you. You can organize your bills in any spreadsheet program on your computer, with an online spreadsheet system such as GoogleDocs, or with an online banking software method. There are many personal financial websites that will pull all your bill information into their system to help you manage your funds.
A good example of a spreadsheet setup is to list your bills in the first column, the due date in the 2nd column, and the amount due in the 3rd column. You can also place your income pay dates in the next columns so you will know which bill should be paid from that check. Once the bill is paid, highlight or check it off your list.
Statement Organization
If you want to keep record of your statements, some people prefer the paper method of organizing their bills. As a busy person, this is excess work. You must open and sort through the mail, consistently purge older paperwork such as shredding once a month, and file the papers to stay organized. Now, you can perform all bill management online. Property management companies are even moving towards credit card payments via online systems. So, you can accurately keep track of your bills by downloading your statements and filing them electronically. You can store the PDF files in a folder labeled for each month and place them in there as they come along. For statements that come in via the mail, medical bills, or credit collections, simply scan the bill and file it at once. Once the bill is paid, delete it.
Decide On a System to Pay Your Bills
There are numerous ways to pay a bill. You can pay it in person, have the payment automatically drafted from your checking account, pay online to the creditor’s site, or mail the payment in. Decide on the method that works best for you and pay all your bills with the same method if possible. This keeps you organized and prevents you from checking multiple accounts to verify a bill has been paid. The best method is via the creditor automatically drafting it from your checking or savings account. Do this if you always have ample amount of funding in your account to cover the bills. This is advised because the burden is on the creditor to pull the funding, it’s always paid on time, and you can worry about organizing it at a later time.
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By Michelle, Free Stuff Finder Contributor
