web analytics
logo
Insights on money, career and trading

How To Make Sure Your Bills Get Paid Every Month

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Daniel at 5:50 pm

It’s easy for life to get out of control and for you to get so busy that you sometimes forget to pay a bill here and there, but there are things you can do to help you remember to pay your bills and ensure that they actually get paid on time each and every month. When it comes to paying bills, if you are paying things on time it can result in shut-off notices and even bad credit. And then when you want to get things turned back on you’ll often find that you get charged extra, or may even have to put a deposit down.

If you really want to make sure that you’re not spending extra money on your bills just because you forget some once in awhile, here are a few ways that you can ensure that you are paying your bills on time every single month.

How Much Money Do You Have Coming In?

The ultimate first step in making sure your bills get paid is to determine how much money you have coming in. This isn’t just about your normal income from work, if you sell items online you can include that money, if you have an annuity that you’re getting paid or child support, or even have some other sort of settlement that you get on a monthly basis you want to make sure that is included in your tally.

This is crucial, especially when you’re a divorcee, and have dependants to support. A lack of financial planning during the marriage can take you on a downhill spiral, which includes the vicious cycle of borrowing and getting into debt. Therefore, it is important that you have documents on child support framed with the help of a Family Law Attorney Phoenix. With a properly quantified amount of money that comes in as alimony or child support, you could ascertain the amount of money you have towards monthly expenditures.

Knowing how much you have coming in will help you know how much you can allow to go out. You want to make sure that you know how much you’re spending on groceries each month, car repairs, and other things that aren’t items that actually send you a bill in the mail or let you check a bill online. These still cost you money, but they aren’t going to give your credit report a bad rap, unless you are paying for them with a credit card.

Set Up Automatic Payments

When you can it can be useful to set up automatic payments for bills so you have pay to on a monthly basis. Most companies, from credit cards to your heating bill, have this luxury available to you. Often it might even get you a discount.

However, using this type of payment plan you also need to still make sure that you’re subtracting it out of your bank account so you don’t end up with an overdraft. So it helps to still have some sort of list telling what bills are due when, and how much they are.

Make A Payment Calendar

With or without automatic payments set up you need to have some sort of payment reminder written down somewhere. This can be on a dry erase board on your wall, written into each month of a calendar, or even put in a notebook on your desk where you write checks.

Your payment list or calendar is going to be something you want to check on a regular basis (maybe each time you get paid), so you can determine which bills to pay off and when!

logo
Insights on money, career and trading