7 Tips To Organize Your Bills
1. Keep all your pending bills together, in one file. Make sure that as soon as your mail arrives, sort through your mail, separating your pending bills from all of your other mail. When sorting is done, immediately place your pending bills in a file. Whatever you do, don’t put your utility bill in one folder, your car insurance bill in another folder and your membership dues bill in another. All pending bills should be together in one file so they can be paid without having to search 10 different places to find them.
2. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you don’t have to drop everything you’re doing when you get a bill in the mail to pay it immediately. So make sure to designate 2 to 4 days per month and do your entire bill paying on those days.
3. In order to speed up your bill paying efforts, always pay your bills in one place, whether that place is your desk, the kitchen table, etc. Wherever it is, this area should be equipped with your bills, checkbook, envelopes, stamps, pens, pencils, a calculator, tape, a stapler and return address labels. If you don’t have drawers to keep your supplies in, get yourself a small plastic box, or even a shoebox, and keep everything inside.
4. Once you pay your bills, mark your copy or section of the invoice with the Date Paid, Check Number and Amount Paid. Then, file each into the appropriate pocket of your Bill Paying Folder–with one pocket for each; i.e. Utilities, Insurance, MasterCard, Visa, etc. or into categorized folders in your filing cabinet.
5. Every month you will receive checking account statement(s), and possibly cancelled checks, from your bank. Immediately place them in a folder until your designated monthly date rolls around to reconcile your checking account. Then, keep your statements and cancelled checks all together in a folder for the year. You may need to retrieve them later for your accountant when tax season rolls around. Also any bank statements and/or cancelled checks more than a year old can be stored away in a different area than your current files. You may also consider checking with your accountant to determine how long he or she suggests you need to keep this information.
6. The more credit cards you have, the more difficult it is going to be to keep them organized, and the longer it’s going to take you to pay your bills. Whenever possible, condense your credit cards into 2 or 3 credit cards, and get rid of the rest.
7. For recurring bills, such as mortgage, rent or loan payments, you’ll save a lot of time preparing a bunch of envelopes for each beforehand. For example, if you have to pay the rent each month. Make a year’s worth of envelopes out with your landlord’s name and mailing address, your return address and a stamp. This way, everything will be all set to go each month. You just write out a check, place it in the prepared envelope and mail.
