Welcome to Mission #3 of our 52 Organizing Missions.
If you’ve completed the previous two missions Get Organized Mission #1: Fill a Hu-u-uge Trash Bag and Get Organized Mission #2: Detox Your Briefcase/Tote/Bag, congratulations!
Keep up the momentum with this week’s task, which helps you get your finances sorted.
This is one of those high-payoff projects. It takes only a little time to set up yet saves time, bother and possibly penalty charges later on.
Disclaimer: This post is designed to provide organizing help, not financial advice. Please be proactive and decide whether you should talk to a financial professional.
Remember – you only have to spend 30 minutes to complete the basic mission. If you want to go further check out the Extended Organizing Mission Options below.
Ready?
Get Organized Mission #3: Organize Your Bill Payment
Step 1: Gather copies of all your regular bills
Your regular bills might include:
- Mortgage/rent
- Utilities
- Internet
- Cell phone
- Landline
- Car loan payments
- Credit card payments
- School fees
- Subscriptions.
Step 2: Set up automatic bill payment where available
Many of your regular bills may be automatically payable each month from your back account or credit card. Check for details on the back of your bill or look up your account online.
You can generally set up automatic payment by phone, online, or by using an ancient type of admin called ‘a form’. (Don’t fight it – whatever effort you make now will be worth the saved time, money and hassle.)
It goes without saying that you need to be able to cover these bills from your credit card or bank account. But I’ve said it anyway.
Step 3: Set up internet banking or phone banking
Ideally, all your bills will be automatically payable. If so, your organizing mission is complete and you can spend any remaining time tidying your financial papers.
For any bills that aren’t automatically payable, set up internet banking or phone banking to pay these bills at your convenience. Phone, visit or get online to set up your accounts.
Ongoing
When a bill arrives, check whether it will be autopaid. The bill will say something like: ‘Payment of $287 will be made by autopayment from your credit card on 28 November 2009. Please ensure funds are available on this date.’
If it’s a pesky one that can’t be autopaid, diarize the due date. If you use something like Outlook you can set a reminder, too. And on the due date, pay it.
Alternatively, if you have several bills that aren’t able to be autopaid, you might prefer to save time and batch the tasks by paying them all at once, online or by phone – but before the earliest due date.
Dos & Don’ts
- Don’t procrastinate on organizing your bill payment. These 30 minutes of personal organization will save you time – and possibly money – every single month.
- Do keep any passwords for phone or internet banking safe and secure. Be organized and smart!
Extended Organizing Mission Options
Want to go beyond this 30-minute organizing mission?
- Since credit card payments are at the higher end of interest charges, pay them off in full in each month if you can.
- If you have high-school-age kids, this is an excellent mission to complete with them. Teach them valuable financial and organizing skills all in one go.
- If you have ancient bills and receipts you no longer need for tax or accounting reasons, consider shredding them now.
Ready, Set, Go!
Remember – move quickly, act fast, don’t overthink.
Before You Go – Please Check In
You’re now accountable to your organizing mission-mates! Once you’ve completed this week’s Get Organized Mission please add a comment to let us know you’ve done your assignment and you’re keeping your commitment.
(Click ‘Comment’ at the very top of this post or scroll down to the bottom. Depending on how you’re viewing this post, one of those options will be available for you.)
And see you back here next week!
Update
You can get your weekly organizing mission delivered to your inbox.
Click here to sign up for 52 Organizing Missions.
My bills can be divided roughly to two different categories:
1. Automatically paid.
2. Manually paid
In category 1, I have some bills that get paid automatically. I have set the due date for most of those very close to my monthly pay day. By that way I can have some of my very important bills paid in time (and I know that I have money for them on my account :).
Also, I have an automatic payment that goes to my savings account. I remember earlier when saving money, I never got it done. Now, since the payment is automatic, I don’t have to worry about it 🙂
In category 2, I have manually paid bills. However, they are all paid through online banking.
Some of the bills are electronic, so that I get an notification to my email saying, that there is a new bill in your online bank to be paid. Then I have some paper bills coming in as well. I tend to take care of them as soon as I can. Also, I mark my bills with the date when I paid it and put it to my file folder.
I hope that I can cut down the number of paper bills by turning them electronic. Turning them all to electronic may be possible soon, since there are already lot’s of companies which offer this possibility and the amount is increasing all the time.
@Flo: It’s good to hear you have many areas covered. 🙂
Decluttering is a big part of being organized – the less excess stuff you have, the easier it is to have an organized home. So well done on those regular clutter-busting sessions!
I prefer to be in control of my bill paying and that means being sure there’s enough money to cover all the bills that come in. I note dates on my calendar to be sure I send payments on time. I’m still doing what I was doing before I spent money on this course. I’m decluttering my house and that includes fifteen to thirty minute sessions, lots and lots of them, going through boxes of old papers and shredding ancient bills/receipts.
Still looking for something I don’t already know about.
I went through our bill paying stuff and found that there is nothing to do! It’s all on autopayment already and the ones that aren’t have a reminder in my calendar. Yay!
Boy, I'm really on a roll. I just completed Mission #3. My bill-paying was already organized so there wasn't much to do. On to Mission #4…
Mission 3 done 🙂
This is something I’ve been doing for awhile. At one time I had them all on auto pay through the company but now most of them go through my bank’s bill pay system.
Continue the awesome work!
folks with screwy thoughts think like this:
It is remarkable, rather amusing message
This was easy since 90% of my bills were either done through automatic payment or online banking. Done!
Already had most set up but there were a couple of nagging ones I hadn’t got to. I feel a little relieved now that this is done!
Already done.
Hurrah, I’m done with mission #3!
Done already.
I had already started doing this some months back and find it to be the best way to go as long as I remember to write it down in my check book and in my financial software program.
OK. This took far more than 30 minutes, but I did it in 30 minute increments and was certainly less over-whelmed as a result.
Easy one. I set up on-line banking over a year ago and haven’t looked back. I chose not to use automatic payments, but I’ve set up my credit cards, insurance, and cell phone with on-line statements so I get an e-mail notice whenever there is a new bill to be paid. Love it!
done
Well this was easy as we’ve been doing online banking with the use of a personally created spreadsheet for years!
I’ve been meaning to work on this for a long time. I already had online banking set up with our CU, but I only entered a couple of Payees then gave up. I worked for an hour on it today, setting up what I could, and figuring what to do with a couple other bills that have to pay other ways. I also created a “status list” for our reference, so as each bill comes in, we’ll know what action we needs to be taken: ok to pay online, set up, etc. Even though it could take up to a month before I can call the project complete, I already feel relieved that I got the ball rolling and that we have a solid plan.
Already done.