How I Stay Organized : Bills
Paying bills has got to be the worst thing about being an adult. My parents raised me with the value that if you want something, you have to work for it thus bringing forth my first few major bills. My very first major bill came from getting a credit card. I decided to get one right before I moved to college for my very first year just in case there was any emergencies and so I could also build credit. At first, I was relatively good at using the card on minor purchases but only if I had money in my checking account to replace it immediately. This all change when I decided that the tablet I was using as a laptop was not living up to my expectations so I decided to purchase a Mac with the card. To be honest, my account has not seen a balance of $0 since that purchase 4 years ago, but that’s an entirely different story.
The next major bills came from purchasing my first car. Many high schoolers get their first car when for their 16th birthday as a present from their parents after they have received their permits to drive. Because my family moved around a lot during my high school years, I wasn’t able to take driver’s end until senior year which honestly wasn’t that big of a deal to me, and I wasn’t extremely anxious to get on the road and own the streets like other teens were at that age. After I got my license, I obviously wanted my first car and I was moving up to college on my own. I wanted to be in control of how I got around at school and I also wanted to be able to go home on weekends if I wanted to, but as I had been told while I was growing up, my parents stated that if I wanted a car, I had to work for it. I had to be able to show them that I was able to pay the car payments and car insurance every month without fail before I could go get my first vehicle. In my second year of college, I was accepted into the work study program so I was finally able to save enough money for a downpayment and for monthly payments on both the car and the insurance. In case anyone was wondering, my first car was a silver 2002 Ford Escape XLT, and what a trusty car she was for the first year. Things eventually went south but that’s also a completely different story.
During college, I only had 3 major bills to worry about and, in order to stay on top of payments, I used the calendar on my phone to set reminders for the due dates. It was simple and it worked. Everything changed when I got married and I then not only had to worry about having my bills paid on time, but I also had to make sure that Josh’s bills were paid on time. He had been pretty capable of knowing all of his due dates and how much he owed before we got married but for my sanity, I had to also keep track of what he was paying and when, so I got a planner.
I purchased my planner at Michaels because they have all of the cute spiral bound planners with all of the fun stickers and pretty pages, and if I’m going to be using it for serious things like planning (which is what it’s technically used for) then I’m going to have fun while doing it. **Not sponsored!
Tip: If you go to Michaels a few days after New Years, then the planners are extremely discounted so if you can wait a couple days before planning out your year, then I highly recommend doing so! If not, gurrrl, get yourself the Michaels app on your smartphone and use those coupons! Shop smarter, not harder.
Back to planning. Not only do I like to have things written down so I can remember and reference them for the future, I also enjoy brightly colored stationary for color coding. I use colored pens and those little highlighter colored page stickies in order to keep track of who’s doing what and who’s name the bill is under. Color coding just makes it that much easier to find something in the planner if I know what item I’m trying to find which in this post, is bills. I enjoy writing with pens so if you’re anything like me, you know that there are bound to be times when you make a mistake or things change so make sure you have one of those white out roller things on hand so you don’t make your planner messy and more confusing by scratching things out or writing over anything.
*Number 11 from my “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Me” post, I have somewhat of an obsession with stationary and office supplies. It’s all so pretty and makes me feel like I have my life together which we all know is not true most of the time.*
Here is where we get into how to use your pretty planner for keeping your bills in order!
The first thing I did was establish a color coding system for the things I wanted to keep track of in regards to paying bills. I make things difficult for myself by using some of the same colors for planning other things but those things, like blogging, and events are completely separate from bills, so my brain lets me get away with it. Not everyone’s system will be the same but my complicated system works for me so that’s what I stick to. Find the system that works best for you and then in the front of your planner, make yourself a little key so you don’t forget what the colors mean. You can see that pink is for bills under my name, light blue is for bills under Josh’s name, purple is for bills in both of our names (get it.. Because pink and blue make purple.), and red is for unexpected bills such as medical bills or car registration and taxes.
I like to plan my bills out by month so at the beginning of the month, I write out the bills for the next month. For example, at the beginning of April, I will write out the bills for May. I start at the calendar page at the beginning of the month and write down the the name of the bill in the square of the date that its due using the color that corresponds to the name that the bill is under.
After I have written the bills names on the calendar due dates for the entire month, I then go page by page. My planner has this little section next to each day to write little notes or reminders for that day. If a bill is due on that day, I go to that little section and write “Bill” at the top, list the bill’s name, and then list how much the bill is for that month. This is all still written in the color that’s assigned to the person whose name is on the bill.
After each bill is paid, I put a checkmark next to the bill on the calendar AND wherever else I wrote that specific bill down just so I know that it was definitely paid for and I don’t have to worry about it until the next month.
The planner system works for me because I use it for other things like planning blog posts or writing down things that are happening like birthdays and traveling, so I look at it every day. If the only thing you are going to be using a planner for is keeping track of bills, you don’t have any other reason to look at it every day which can cause you to forget when things are due and you might even stop using the planner all together. If that’s the case, I do suggest the phone calendar method because you can set up alerts to remind you as often as you need it to.
I hope that this post helps some of you who are a little less organized and need a place to start when it comes to managing bills. If any of you would like a little more explaining, don’t hesitate to contact me, and if you have any other tips of your own that might help the rest of us get our lives together, please comment below! This post is a part of a series called “How I Stay Organized” so keep a look out for the rest of the posts in the series!
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