Five ways to make sure you never pay a bill late
Paying bills late can cause issues with late fees, shut off notices, and your credit. Here are five ways to make sure you never pay a bill late again. There is much more to a bill being late, other than it is just late. There is so much more affected than it would appear.
Start with figuring out all your bills and your income. Paying bills on time takes knowing what bills you have and setting them up on a schedule. So gathering all the bills, and knowing what your income is and when you get paid will help to make sure your bills are never late. Put all your bills in the same place. This way it is easier to get them together and pay them each pay period. This can be in a drawer, or box or folder. What ever makes it easier for you?
|
|
Next you will want to set aside time that you will sit down to pay your bills each pay period. So if you get paid once a month, then once a month set that time to pay the bills. If you are paid bi-weekly, then you will want to sit down every other week to pay the bills. If, you are paid weekly, then the set aside time every week. This is unless you want to pay the bills every other week, or twice per month.
Set the payments at the times that you pay the bills. Therefore if you have bills that are due between the first and the fifteenth of the month, then you can set those bills to be paid at that setting with that paycheck. If you have bills due from the sixteenth to the end of the month, then you can set those to be paid with that paycheck. Be sure to pay those bills at that setting.
Using a budget will help you to make sure those bills are paid on time. Document either on paper, with a spreadsheet or through a personal finance program the debts and income you have. This will help you budget out your money, and set the payments up for payment on time.
Where you can set the payments to be paid through automatic payments. You can do this in a couple different ways. You can use the personal finance program, or go through the companies that you owe the payments, or you can go through your bank. If this does not work for you, then you can set up your own payments just as successfully. The main thing is to sit down at the planned time and pay out your payments consistently.
Pay your payments in the form of a check, or money order. If you do use a debit system, then you will need to make sure to get the information written down each time. That way there is not any problems with your bank account.
Make sure to file the receipts of all the bills you have paid. This can be kept in several different ways. The easiest way is to use an expandable folder with each month marked off. Then after the next year comes then use a folder to hold those in a separate location. This will need to be done for a total of seven years for your personal records.
When you have any of your bills that are paid with envelopes, and the mail, then you will need to set your bills by your keys, or somewhere that you will remember to take your bills out to the mail box. The other option is when you complete the bills, put them in the mailbox at that time.
Following these steps will help you to be able to make sure that your payments are paid on time and are never late again.
