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April 2014 Moms
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Organizational suggestions

MamamonzoMamamonzo member
in April 2014 Moms
DH's mail and bill system drives me batty!!! He stacks all our bills on the kitchen counter in the order they need to be paid. We have a white board with the due dates listed so we don't miss anything. I won't do automatic bill pay I've been burned a couple of times. Our office is two floors below our main level so anything down there gets forgotten. Anyone have any awesome file systems or idea on how to clear the clutter off my counters, but keep everything within eyesight!?!?

 

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Re: Organizational suggestions

  • LittleLady77LittleLady77 member
    edited January 2014
    I set up a "home command center". Google image it if you don't know what it is. Ultimately it's been so helpful. I sit down and pay all the bills 2x per month. Those days are set in the calendar.

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  • MamaFantasticMamaFantastic member
    My suggestion is to sign up for auto-pay, but that's not a helpful offer based on your needs/wants :)

    I hate paying manual bills. I'm way too disorganized to do that. We have a perpetual stack of mail and bills and paperwork on our kitchen island too, and 95% of our bills are auto-debited, so if I can't manage to pay my medical bills and quarterly town water/sewer bill on time, I have no idea how you could do it either!

    We have a wall-mounted low profile file holder in the kitchen... maybe something like that would work for you too.

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  • redjellybean128redjellybean128 member
    We have a mail basket that is on a small table by the door. I pay most of our bills online (sign up for ebilling and track in a spreadsheet) twice monthy. Somethings I still have to pay manually so they go in the basket with a reminder in the spreadsheet that they need to be paid and when. Junk mail (like credit card offers) goes right into a shred bag that DH takes to work with him to shred when full. Other junk goes right into the recycle bin.  About every two weeks (coinsides with recycle pickup) I sort through the basket, toss old coupons and old catalogs and magazines. It works for us. 

    I've also started to get into the habit of scanning in important docs like reciepts so that I can toss or file the originals (somethings I still keep paper copies of). It's really started to limit the amount of paper clutter around the house. 
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  • Stace0616Stace0616 member
    We do everything online, but I use this for my follow-ups at work: https://www.staples.com/Staples-EveryDay-Letter-Size-File-Sorter-1-31-Jan-Dec/product_422683?cid=PS:GooglePLAs:422683&srccode=cii_17588969&cpncode=33-246783233-2

    You can sort it by due date so you don't miss a bill.  And even though we do everything online, I still get paranoid and make a simple one sheet checklist of all set bills by due date and amount that includes when our paychecks come in.  It helps me to be able to check stuff off once it clears our bank.  Plus, now that DH's company switched to paying out on the 15th and the end of the month, I realized WELL ahead of time that we'll be needing to transfer money from our savings to pay some bills due 1/12/14.

    Different systems work for different people, but our combination of paper and online billing seems to work well for us :)
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  • scarlesscarles member
    We don't get paper bills anymore. I use a spreadsheet with due dates and then I organize the monthly bills to pay every two weeks by paycheck. I manually pay each one. It's so nice to have it listed out and see what our expenses look like with our income.
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  • NewPhillyMom2014NewPhillyMom2014 member
    We use online bill pay. Anytime a bill is received its setup to be paid online on the same day we get a paycheck before it's due date. Immediately recycle or put in shred pile, take shred pile to work 2x month. Works for us.
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  • KatieGummowKatieGummow member
    The first of the month I pay all our bills. Everything is electronic, so we don't get paper bills. I have a document (kinda scary but so useful) on the computer with due dates, approximate amounts due, log ins, and passwords. It is so nice, calm, and convenient for me, I don't mind paying bills.
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  • fourthnlastfourthnlast member
    We have a wall mounted mail thingy that holds the few paper bills we get. The husband has almost all of the companies apps on his phone, so he's in charge. One less thing I have to worry about :)
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  • Avion22Avion22 member
    We used to use one of those mail-sorter thingy that has 31 labeled slots, and we put bills in the slot that corresponded to the day the bill was due.  Any mail that went into the house was immediately sorted and bills placed in the appropriate slot.   We checked weekly to make sure we had paid all of the bills that were due in the next week.

    Now we just get paper-less bills.  My bank alerts me via email when a new bill comes in, and it also shows up in our Online Bill Pay Page (on our bank website).  Again, once a week, I make sure that I check to make sure I'm not about to miss something.  I'll set up some payments a few weeks in advance, but I don't do automatic withdrawals (unless it's something that's the same amount every single month, like subscriptions or membership fees) because those scare the bejeezus out of me.   
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  • Bluebird2318Bluebird2318 member
    fourthnlast said:

    We have a wall mounted mail thingy that holds the few paper bills we get. The husband has almost all of the companies apps on his phone, so he's in charge. One less thing I have to worry about :)

    This is what we have. It's just a little black mini-shelf that has a "To Do" section and a "To File" section.
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  • Jennpjc414Jennpjc414 member
    edited January 2014
    fourthnlast said:

    We have a wall mounted mail thingy that holds the few paper bills we get. The husband has almost all of the companies apps on his phone, so he's in charge. One less thing I have to worry about :)


    This as well for us, although most of our bills are auto pay, the ones that aren't go in here and are sorted in the weekend.
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  • nicole mackenzienicole mackenzie member
    I have a spreadsheet on excel. I have all the dates things are due and the method of payment im using.

    I also keep track of all our spending this way and can compare month to month and year to year.

    As far as the paper stuff I'm not very good... I used to have a small filing box with partitions. I'd keep health stuff in one slot, pet stuff, utilities, etc.

    But right now My paperwork is in a pile...
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  • LyndseyLCLyndseyLC member
    Everything for us is auto pay except our internet and my personal credit cards
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