How to Organize Your Bills

I want to start this off by saying I am in no way an expert on bill paying and managing money but I am however super type A and thus an organization crazy lady. I definitely like things in their place and it makes me crazy to not be able to find something. So with that said, I think I can offer some good tips on organizing yourself to pay your bills on time and be able to find things when you need them.

I have 3 pocket folders I use. I love these ones because I have customized them to fit my needs (snag our coupon below to get yours!). I have one that says “Bills – Due on 1st”, one that says “Bills – Due on 15th” and one that says “Bills To Be Filled”.

Any bill that is due from the 1st- 15th goes in the “Due on the 1st” folder and from the 15th – 30th in the “Due on the 15th” folder. Then 2-3 days before the 1st – the 1st -15th bills are paid and same for the other folder. This way you are only paying bills twice a month. Once bills are paid, it is noted on the bill paperwork the date and amount paid and then they are put in the “To Be Filed” folder or directly into my binder system.

Speaking of my binder system – This is it below. It is a 3″ binder and there is a tab for every bill, monthly expense, medical bills, etc. Anything we know in advance we will be paying for on a regular basis for the year gets a tab. Directly on the tab I write the account #, login and password for each account as well as the general due date each month. It is kind of a quick over view for when I flip to that bill. I do have a general list of all this in a excel spreadsheet but I find it so nice and easy to pull this out and find it right away when I am looking at the paperwork.

At the end of each month I take my pocket folder “To Be Filed” and file all the bill paperwork putting the most recent bill on top in it’s tabbed section.

For receipts, I swear by pocket file folders like these. I get mine at Target. Generally around the first of the year they have them in the $1 bins and I get 2. One for our personal receipts and one for my business. Now I am kinda lazy now but in the past (the way my daddy taught me) I would take my bank reconciliation each month and match my receipts to it. So everything is accounted for. I used to also do this for my gas bills with my gas receipts when I use to use a gas card. Now we use our Kroger card because we get great gas discounts from buying our groceries there – anywhere from $0.03 -$0.20 a gallon. After awhile that adds up!

For yearly paper work like health insurance packets, Lauren’s school docs, home paperwork, I file in a bin with hanging folders. If you are interested in seeing how that works I can do a post on that one too.

I hope all this information was useful and if you have any questions leave them in the comments below and I can try to answer them.

Let’s start this year off friends on the right track!