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

[red_trillium]

Thank you for your suggestions. I'm really hesitant to put anything on the credit cards. We're on 1 income and had really high credit card bills until we paid them off with the pay she got when she was laid off. We're already starting to carry small balances ($100-$500) each month on a couple of them and I want to stop doing that. One of the cards we use to order fresh produce (the stuff in the store is shockingly not that fresh here & this place has good prices & freshness).

I'm also trying to avoid the automatic debit for bills since I get paid every 2 weeks. My pay dates fluctuate in relation to when things are due so sometimes I need to pay things early, other times to pay them late.

I know I need to find motivation to deal with the finances but it is sometimes hard, especially when facing my tiredness but also the also the stress of a small budget!

Thank you for your sympathies. Most people don't understand so that adds it's own stress. We're doing our best!

[shadowandflame]

Ah, it probably works better for me as I'm paid monthly.

I have a little experience with what ongoing pain is like; you do what you can. Your wife is lucky to have your support, and I think it's entirely understandable that keeping up with bills is something you don't always have time or energy for.

I see you mentioned entering receipts in another comment - if you're using debit to pay for a lot of stuff, that *is* a chore Mint is very helpful with (if you're comfortable giving it your online banking login info, anyway). It automatically categorizes most of your purchases according to the budget area it thinks they belong in, and it's usually right; I do still have to tell it where a few purchases belong, but it's definitely much less work than manually entering receipt amounts into a budget spreadsheet, like I used to do.