Bill Paying Organizing Tips.

Much to Troy's dismay I toss any paper bills I get. I set up my bank to pay every bill I get and forget about them. I download my statements and store it on my computer and a thumb drive. My desk is quite clean. :)

I have to get OFF of mamapedia to pay the bills and then I do so as quickly as possible so I can come back here and read what's going on...

I would recommend you pay as many bills on-line, and as many as automatically as possible.

...there's an app for that!

All of our bills are done automatically through my husband's checking account...we are a debt free family - so any bill that we have - is for water, electricity, cell phone, etc. and the mortgage (we're working on that!)

Any other bills that come in the mail? are usually health bills and are paid immediately on our HSA card...

when we had credit cards - they were paid every two weeks - the highest and most important being first.....car payments, then credit cards...now? it's easy!!

Do I miss credit cards?!?!?!? HECK YEAH!!! But I don't miss the "rot roh" of "did I REALLY charge all that?!"

I am thinking about purchasing the "neat desk" thing so I can electronically store our bills - especially if we ever go to sell the house - I'd like to be able to show electric/water bills for a year....

Once they are paid - we shred the bill - even on line payments - if we get the bill in the mail - we shred it.

I pay all my bills online through my bank. They have it set up to where I put all my bill information in and how much and when to pay. I have all my bills pay after hubby gets the one pay check and then my rent gets paid on the other pay day. I just set it up to automatically pay on a certain date. All bills on one pay check to pay the same day. And the rent on the other pay day. It worked great when we were out of town for a month. I even tithe to our church and support missionaries this way.

I have an excel spreadsheet that for the past year, I just listed all of our bills top to bottom - listing the date they are due. I would then go into our online bill pay and ensure the amount has not changed from the previous month and make any changes that way. Two of our bills come out of the company's website so I do nothing with those.

I just this week have changed our budget spreadsheet so that it is laid out week by week. What bills are due and how much do we have to last us until the next payday. That way, we can figure out how much extra money we have each month for extras. As gas has gone up I've had to budget more for that! We also budget about how much we will spend each week on groceries. Being able to look at each week for the month is helpful because if we want to do something (movies, out to eat, etc) we can see where it fits best into our budget and do it during the week.

In addition, hubby and I each give ourselves a small amount of cash each week for splurge money. I often use it to eat out with coworkers and my family. Hubby saves his until he has more and then can buy a new computer game or something.

At the end of the month whatever is leftover goes into savings. I know you should budget savings like a bill (and we did for the past year) but I'm wanting to see how this will work for us instead!

As Dave Ramsey says "Plan for every dollar of your money to go somewhere" so we essentially start each month with $0 because anything leftover from the previous month goes into savings!

We also have three savings accounts - our overall savings, the kids college savings and then also one for celebrations - mostly for Christmas but also can be used if we have a lot of birthdays or celebrations during the month.
Good luck!

Our household is basically paperless now- all my bank statements are paperless, and I use Quicken on the computer for my checkbook register. I get e-statements for a lot of my bills (though I choose paper bills for most of them so that I don't forget). I went to hobby lobby and got a bill organizer when they were having one of their 50% off sales (and they are having their half off sale now!), and put that on the wall. There are two slots- one is our "IN" box for bills, and one is for matters that need attention- such as papers that need to be filled out, etc. After the bill is paid, and I have received a confirmation email of payment, or it has cleared the bank account, I throw the statement away (unless it is taxes, or something important like that).

As far as when to pay- we make a budget at the beginning of every single month and budget every dollar of every pay check we will get that month. We for the most part have our '1st of the month' bills that we pay all at once, and out '15th of the month' bills that we pay all at once.

For budgeting and saving, we follow Dave Ramsey's programs, which I highly recommend!

You have a good system!

We stay on top of our bills as you do, only we do all paper. When a bill comes in, we write out a check for it, stick it in the envelope w/a stamp, write the due date on the envelope, and file it in a little upright holder. Then we keep a monthly desk calendar out where we write on the date when the bill is due. Then on each payday, we just pull out the bills due for that pay period and stick it in the mailbox.

We don't pay anything online. It never worked for us. We got screwed the first time we signed up for online payments so we stopped that.

All monthly bills that have to be paid are set up to come directly out of my bank account. I never have to remember to pay them, remember where I left the darn envelope they sent to mail in my payment, or get irritated when I am out of stamps. If I know I have to pay it, why not just have it come out of my account without me having to do anything?! So much easier. We don't have CC debt or any other bills that would vary, so this system works for us.

I am so particular that I often log on to my account on the days I know certain things are to be withdrawn to be sure my bank didn't screw it up. I am never disappointed.

So, I highly recommend auto bill pay! I do not keep any paper or stubs. It is so liberating!!!! Try it, I promise you will like it.

=)

I have just about everything on autopay. I do not write a check for any bill much less put a stamp on it. It's either auto draft from checking or autopay from the credit card, which we pay off each month. The only thing I write checks for is for places that do not have autopay such as my son's preschool or one-off items.
I either shred the papers after I pay them or if I feel I need to keep them, I put them in a file folder. Additionally, most (larger) companies will have your monthly bill online archived for at least 12 months. We also sign up for paperless statements whenever we can.

Two days a month... I have a basket with stamps, envelops return address stickers, pen, and our checkbook in it. As the bills come in, they get tossed in there. The first and third Sunday of the month, I sit down and pay whatever is in there! I put all of the "stubs" in a drawer and file them once a month.

look at expensify.com if you want to keep receipts online. has some great tools targeted for business but could apply to household as well.

i have my quicken checkbook filled out til the end of 2012 - i just estimate amounts on bills that change and fill in accordingly. i get email confirmation of the ones i pay online, so i don't print anything out. i have a small zippered wallet/binder that i keep envelopes of cash in(dave ramseyish style), but for my few paper bills, i open then, put them in their envelope, put return address label and stamp on them, and keep in front section of that until time to pay. i pay bills on paydays, which are the 15th and last day of the month. so, no papers to fool with and my check register on the computer doesn't let me "forget" to pay anything.

My hubby pays bills now the last few years. He has a file box (one with a handle on it...little snap close top so he can store pens and such in the lid). Every bill has a file..each utility, the visa...bank statements, etc. He likes still having the paper copies sent in the mail.

Every Sunday morning (hes a very early riser) when the house is quiet, he gets up and pays bills due that week (I print free calendars for him and he jots what is due when so he can easily refer to that and keep it in the front of his files). He pays via Bill Pay online..so no stamps or envelopes and such. Any medical/dental bills he sets aside for me to do (I call and pay over the phone from our reimbursement acct).

It works for us. All the bills are in one small file box that he tucks under the end table in the corner of the living room (out of sight). We don't have an office with a desk and such..so space is very limited and storage solutions are a must.

Good Luck!

I have a basket that all the mail gets dropped into (I try to pull out junk mail before it goes in there). On payday or right around there (every two weeks) I sit down with Quicken open and my bank's online bill pay and pay everything that is due before NEXT payday. Then all the paperwork that needs to be kept goes in that month's file (everything is going in June right now). It takes absolutely no time to file and if ever I need anything I usually just have to dig through one folder. I keep all our reciepts and such too, then at tax time I cull through and throw everything but the basics away. (I do keep an ongoing year-end folder so any tax info or something I know I'll need at the end of the year goes directly in there). I'm a bookkeeper by trade and my filing would NOT fly in the business world, but I've done it for years and NEVER ONCE had an issue.

By the way, someone else mentioned Dave Ramsey - we use his system too for the most part and I recommend him to anyone that will listen. It CHANGED OUR LIVES!!!!

I bought one of those pencil pouches. I put the bill and it's return envelope inside along with some stamps and return labels inside. Inside my checkbook I keep a small sheet of paper with all the bills down the left margin. I write the amount of the bill and put a checkmark when the check goes in the mail, I pay it online or it autopays depending on the bill. I start a new colum each month going across the paper so I can see the amounts of the last several months in a row to look for any drastic spikes and to keep track of the bills that are paid every other month instead of every month. I jot down the due date in the name colum for those that it stays the same and in the payment area for those that change each month (you know the ones where it's the last Friday of the month or whatever instead of always on the 15th of the month or something). It depends on what time I have. Sometimes I pay them as I get them because we're at the post office anyway (we have a PO box) other times they stay in the pouch in my purse until I have a chance to pay them (by their due dates of course!!)

I prefer paperless billing so I do all my payments online through my bank's bill pay. I set a dollar amount to be paid based on the average payment and the system automatically pays it or sends a check ( for the 1 that doesn't have online payment option) on the designated date, which for us is the 1st of each month. The system sends emails to me advising when the bill statements are ready and also shows the amount due. If it's more than I set to pay and there's no issue, I change the payment for that one time to cover the extra amount. :)

I put all of my bills I get in one file folder. When I get paid (twice a month) I pay all of my bills due (all online) and write the confirmation # on the bill. I keep all of my bills I pay until the end of the year filed by company...utilities, credit card, mortgage. At the end of the year I go through the files and shred anything I don't need for warranty or tax purposes.

Well, I am in charge of all the bills for our business as well so I have hanging files with dates on them 1-5, 6-10,. 11-15, 16-20, 21-25 and 26-31 and I put the bills in the hanging file which corresponds with the due date. I go through once a week and pay bills. If they are online bills, I go ahead and enter them online to be paid a couple days before their due date. This system has worked for me for about 8 years now! Good luck!
E.

I pay everything online - I try to the bills a couple of times a week. I set everything to pay online, write the confirmation number on the bill, and scan the bill, and shred the original.

I record the due dates on my electronic calendar and pay about 98% of my bills online so that usually means I can wait until the day before, (or even the actual due date) to make the payment. And for many of them, especially utilities, I've enrolled in autopay so I don't lift a finger yet no risk of making a late payment. But even these I record on my calendar so I can see the timing of upcoming payments vs. when my hubby and I get paid (we both get paid 2X a month), which helps from a budgeting standpoint so I can better figure out what money is available for discretionary spending, etc. I keep hard copy of the bills due in a slot on my desk. More times than not I handle payments on a day by day basis. Once a bill is paid I file it away, but instead of one big file where everything gets dumped, I have separate files for each providers (i.e., "AT&T" file for our cell phone bill, "Cable" file, "Water/Sewer" file, etc.). I still prefer to keep hard copies of my bills vs. online (if you're computer crashes and you don't have a regular backup method . . . ouch!). And I clean out the files each new year, and store away the prior year's bills.

Two files. One colored plastic envelope is for incoming bills. A different colored envelope is for the to be filed bills. These files are stored on a file holder on the desk. Then I dont see piles of this n that spread across the desk.

I have a lot of commitments to full-fill on the first of every month the bills that come rushing in have always been a pain to pay on-time and due to this I had been struggling with my savings for quite a while now. I just recently hired services of an Automatic Bill Payment http://www.avidxchange.com/page/automatic-payment solution which manages and pays all my bills for me, I must say that now I am able to concentrate a lot more on my finances (a lot easier) and am planning to start looking into saving and cutting down.

I have my bills set to be paid by automatic draft from my checking account. They get drafted on the due date. Saves stamps and bills are never late...and are not paid until due. I enter the bills into my checkbook when I get them in the mail and then file them immediately. The only issue is making sure that you have enough money in you account...but the same is true when you write a check! ( I file bills by utility company, etc...all water bills in one file folder, all Visa bills in one file folder, etc., for easy access if a question pops up)