Time Tips?

[red_trillium]

Does anyone have any tips on how to regularly manage your bills/account but that doesn't take a ton of time?

Our situation: I work full time. I leave the house at 6am, get back at 6pm. I do over half to 3/4 the house work & about 1/3 to 1/2 the cooking usually. My wife has had an increase in her chronic pain levels which means I'm now doing at least 3/4 to all the house work, all the cooking and my usual work schedule & trying to help her with daily things she's having problems with. We're busy at work and going through some Big Changes so I'm also running on low energy so not a lot available. Fortunately we're only just heading into spring but that does mean the gardening is going to start back up, at the very least for our food plants and regular watering.

I've always had a bad bill habit--leaving things until we get paid each fortnight. I've been trying to get better but at this point can't do it as regularly as I'd like due to time and energy being low. As you can imagine this starts a viscous cycle of over spending, dipping into the (diminishing) savings and making me reluctant to face the bills.

How do you stay on top of your bills and balancing your account regularly? Do you do it once or twice or more a week? Do you do certain parts at different times? I've tried to "reward" myself for doing it, I just feel guilty and go without doing/getting something then.

We're hoping that her pain levels reduce back below the spike she had a couple weeks ago, but as she's lived with chronic pain for over 30 years we know they won't go away. I need to get some good habits in place before things do get much worse.

Comments

[drunkoffthestars]

I keep track of everything via Mint. I also make 99% of my purchases via credit card, so it's pretty set it and forget it, I don't have to worry about tracking cash at all, so this is a major YMMV. Mint also has a relatively new 'bill' calendar thing where it has a little calendar of when all your bills are due and about how much they are. It can also send you email reminders. I believe it will do this with just having a mint account even if you don't give it any of your financial information.

I'm a medium fan of automatic billing. I have things I 'trust' and can pay via credit card without penalty (Netlix, cell phone) on automatic billing, and I set up online payments for things I don't 'trust'/can't pay with a credit card (electricity, credit cards) once a month, usually around the first of the month. The only thing I pay via paper is the gas bill because they want automatic debits directly from my checking account (HELL NO) or charge a hefty fee to use a credit/debit card, but that shows up around the same time as everything else and is generally quite low so I pay it as soon as I get it and put the check in the mailbox that night.

If it doesn't imperil your finances to have everything due at once, you could probably call up the companies you do business with and ask for your billing dates to be shifted so that they all occur around the same time so you only have to sit down and take care of them once a month, which cuts down on the amount of time you have to be thinking about it. For instance, both of my credit cards are due around the 10th, so I only have to sit down once a month and set up the payments. This works out really well for me, but I'm also paid on a monthly basis and usually thinking about money things around then and paying rent, etc.

Also, I like having a medium-size buffer in my checking account so that when I go to pay a bill, I just pay it and don't have to worry about when the next paycheck comes in to afford it. But I know YMMV wildly on that one. Some people can mentally mark that money of as reserved and some can't.

[shadowandflame]

Oh, I heart Mint too. I hardly ever pay cash for stuff anymore, because it's so much easier to pay with plastic and let Mint track everything for budgetary purposes. :)

[red_trillium]

Thank you for your suggestions. I'll check into Mint.

I try to avoid putting as much as I can on credit cards. We carried serious CC debt & only paid them off when my wife got her payout for being laid off. There is some stuff that does go on but I'm hesitant to put our normal bills on it.

We couldn't do everything out at once. I get paid every 2 weeks (we're on 1 income) which means my pay dates change. I need more control to be able to pay things earlier or a little late if need be based on how much is due at once.

I try to over estimate our bank balance by about $100 to $150. We cut it close to the line with our regular bills, and the extra spending we do that we need to learn to cut back on. We're also trying to build a jewlery business for her, which means we try to take advantage of the sales when we can. We're still learning about juggling. I need to get better at sitting and dealing with the finances. The Mint email reminder sounds interesting, it might be something that will help me stay on track.

Thank you!

[drunkoffthestars]

yeah, I know credit cards are a pretty fraught topic when it comes to personal finance. :)

I think it you take care of stuff twice a month/every time you get paid, that should be often enough to keep you up to date on paying things.

If tracking your spending is where you see things taking up more time than you have, maybe someone else will have better suggestions, but I've heard good things about the envelope budget method, if you don't mind working all in cash. That way, you wouldn't have to fuss with saving your receipts and whatnot.

I could also see it helping if you had an envelope for each budget category and put your receipts in that envelope at the time of purchase, so when you go to total everything up, it's already sorted and you just have to sit down for a few minutes with a calculator.

Downside: both of these methods do mean wandering around with a bunch of envelopes or one of those expanding file thingies that people use for coupons or something.

Good luck! Let us know if you come up with a method that works for you!

[red_trillium]

I think I need to just get off my bottom and actually do the bills when I get paid, not leave it too long like I've been doing. Part of it is the time/energy thing, especially with doing more around the house due to my wife's health issues. But I think part of it is just self-discipline which I'm lacking.

One option is to set up 7 envelopes to match 7 days a week--that way I can force myself to put the receipts in daily, and then turn around and actually do my bills each week so I can clear the envelopes out. That's an interesting idea, thank you!