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5 Tips for Keeping Bills in Order

While we can all probably admit that paying bills is not on our list of favorite things to do, they are a part of life and cannot be avoided.آ  There are also strict financial penalties that companies have in place for paying your bills late.آ  By having all your bills organized and in order, you can avoid late charges and your credit will not suffer because of constant late payments. This article is going to explain how you can keep your bills in order.

Gather and Sort

It is important to choose a central location in your house that you gather and sort mail each day.آ  Many people choose their desk to perform this task while others may choose their kitchen table.آ  Wherever you decide to have this location, there are a few things you will need to make the task of organizing bills easier.آ  You will need pens, stamps, envelopes, stapler, sticky notes, scotch tape, paper clips, calculator, calendar, address book or Rolodex, phone and computer.آ  When the mail comes in each day, you can trash it, file it or take action with it.

Set Weekly Schedule

You need to set aside one day each week to pay your bills.آ  During this time you can also tackle other paperwork and focus on financial issues of the household.آ  A weekly schedule will work better than every other week or monthly.آ  The goal of this weekly schedule is to pay all of the bills that are due soon.آ  In order to keep track of due dates, you can use a calendar to mark the date a bill is due and the amount or just write the date and amount right on the envelope itself.آ  As each bill is paid, make a note on the bill itself.آ  Most bills come with a part you mail and a part to keep for your records.آ  On the portion meant for your record write the date paid, the amount and the check number or if you paid it online, the confirmation number.

Online Bill Pay Instructions

Many people go online these days to pay their bills through online bill pay.آ  However, if you choose to go this route, you still need to keep track of your bills.آ  There are numerous advantages to paying your bills online such as not having extra mail coming into your home and having your monthly bills come directly out of your bank account each month.آ  You still have to keep track of what is going on such as making sure the bill amount is correct.

File After Paying

You should have an easy filing system in place so you can organize your receipts and bill stubs just in case you need them again down the road.آ  You should keep your bills for about a year or two just in case there is a dispute with a payment or charged amount.آ  The easiest way to file your bills is by month.آ  You can easily create 12 folders and label them with the month.آ  As you pay each bill, you can just add the paid bill into the corresponding folder.آ  This way if you need to reference for a bill from say July, you can just take out that folder and locate the paid bill.

Annual Routine

It is important that you create a yearly routine where you clean up your files and paperwork to get rid of old paid bills and unnecessary paperwork.آ  Get rid off all the bills you have paid from two years ago.آ  This will assist you in having too much paperwork pile up.آ  You may want to invest in a shredder to securely get rid of documents that have account numbers and other personal information on them.