But wait...
You know that you can change the due dates of your bills right?
You don't have to sit down 13 times a month to send off bills one at a time, or keep track of a laundry list of bills and due dates (always wondering and double checking- did I pay that one???). Most companies will let you change the dates of your billing cycle so that the bills come during the portion of the month that YOU want them to. Lots of times you can do it online without even having to wait to talk to anyone. It might throw your payments off for a month (if you have to pay a pro-rated bill to get on track), but after that it will be so much easier!
I try to get all of our bills paid within the first several days of the month (because we only get paid once a month anyway), and then I don't have to think about it at all for the rest of the month! The bonus is that if you get all of your recurring bills out of the way early, you can budget the rest of your spending more accurately.
This is SUCH a good tip and one I try to share with friends who always seem to struggle with the random bills that come in towards the end of their salary month month.
ReplyDeleteMy husband gets paid on the 8th and the default for bills in the UK seems to be the 1st. I struggled for years to keep that money aside until I realised I could do this. Duh! Now, most things are set up for the 15th - gives me a week to check his wage is here. Perfect.
Are direct debits not common in the US? I read a lot about you all having to pay bills and send off cheques? All my household bills are paid by direct debit ie the utility company direct the bank to give them the money and the bank just takes it. Usually, you get a discount if you pay by DD (sometimes up to 10%) and it is also a way of "balancing" bills over the year ie I pay £89 per month all year around for electricity and gas (house gas, not petrol, I mean) so there is no big scary bill in the winter.
Just curious as US blogs so often mention bill paying and bills piling up.
Karen (Scotland)
Yes it is definitely possible to set up automatic debiting from your account-and we do that for several of our bills...but had to change the dates because our new phone wanted to debit on the 25th which is TERRIBLE when the only paycheck comes in on the 1st :)
ReplyDeleteI personally only like to use this option if the bill is for a fixed ammount however.
Yes, I agree. Most of ours are fixed amounts- the only one that varies is the phone/broadband but that's only by a couple of pounds which I can deal with.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking last night and, strangely, the only "company" that won't let me change the date is the government - for our council tax (local authority rates that everyone pays depending on value of house). It HAS to come off on the 1st and is most people's biggest single bill (part from mortgage) which I think is very unhelpful of them. It's not like it even suits their own employees who get paid four weekly!
Karen (Scotland)