Nathan

Do you just pay them as they come in or do you have a system for it? What about things that occur on or around the same tiem every month?

I have a few things (phone, water, electricity, etc) that come in and need to be paid at roughly the same time ever x amount of months.

My problem is I get the bill set it down then often forget about it.

Do you have anything to remid you? Software maybe that tells you when a bill needs paying or a scheduling system of some sort?

Can you recommend anything?

JDA

I pay them immediately when they come in. Then I don't waste any psychological worry on "did I pay that bill?".

It's also not a bad idea to sign up for auto-payment where they take the money straight from your bank account every month, but I've never gotten around to doing it myself.

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Nick

Mine are all paid automatically. It also might save you some money to do it this way. I'd have to pay some kind or processing fee to pay by cash or cheque. Alternatively, if you can pay by phone, you could just phone up as soon as you get it.

Nathan

I generally have to wait until pay day before I can afford to pay any bills. It would be nice to pay them the minute they come in but that's not practical for me unfortunately.

emp

Automate as many of them as possible.
(I guess this is easier in Germany than the US)

Pay the rest ASAP, note them in my Next Actions.

::emp::

JDA

Believe me, I've been there. Not that long ago either.

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Nathan

I'm aware of the automatic deductions but I've heard a lot of horror storie about that too. FOr example if you dont have the money in your account and the debit is attempted the banks here charge you $30 - $50 for a the failed attempt. Which then over draws your account which then incurs a further $30 - $50 over draw fee from the bank.

Nice huh?

Julez

yeah a balif at the door soon reminds me

Nathan

Thankfully i'm not THAT bad

a.titus1

I pay the same bills at the same time every month. I have an excel sheet that has each months bills that I keep updated. No worries since I know what is paid and when.

Nathan

Do you just type the bills name in and the number or do you actualy work out some forumla's to take it down to $0 etc?

joe

They all go to my credit card and I look over the statement and see that everything is accounted for - then I pay it off.

Nathan

Do you pay your card off every month so not to be hit with interest?

DanNicol

Been there in college I had 10 of those 25 over draft charges - deposited a check for 300 bucks and only had 50 left I was pissed

-Dan

Nathan

Nice. Banks here in Aust make billions of dollars profit ever quarter from the interest they charge us.

If only I could open a bank, charge half the fees and still be a billionaire within a year....

JDA

I've been there, only I was a couple of hundred in the hole. It's amazing how much better/easier my life's gotten in the past couple of years.

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Nathan

So the consensus so far is to either pay the second they come in or have the money direct debited from your account?

dre

I have so much on my cards I don't even look at the total balance anymore.

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rogerd

I have all of my bills automatically withdraw during the month. I just set this up at the company site rather than an "online billpay" system like what Bank of America provides.

Then I use MS Money 06 to download my bank transactions and manage my budget.

joe

Of course. Lately my expenses have only been 20% of my income so it's not hard to do at all.

Plus I get lots of points.

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"Make no small plans."