Yesterday afternoon I was sitting at my desk at work when I suddenly had a dreadful thought. Had I paid my mortgage? I didn't remember paying it, but my memory is unreliable at best. I grabbed my phone and started thumbing through the texts from my bank (I have it set to text me for every withdrawal or deposit over $100). Scroll, scroll. And there it was. The last mortgage withdrawal came out in September. Oops. I quickly signed onto my mortgage company's website and arranged payment. Crises averted.
But holy crap. What if I'd never thought about it? Why am I still struggling to remember to pay my bills at 40 years old? Why haven't I figured out some sort of system yet? Because clearly, my system is NOT working.
Driving to work this morning in the rain I had another thought (where do these random thoughts come from?). I used to make a note in my planner of when bills were due, but these days I only look at it once a month. I need something more visible, something I can't miss. I got to work and googled printable calendar (or something along those lines). This one was a near the top of the results, so I added not due dates but dates to pay the specific bills and printed it. This baby is going on the fridge right next to my son's glittery blue finger painting masterpiece.
I sure hope this helps me remember to pay my bills in a timely fashion!
Do you have any tips or tricks to suggest? What works for you?
1 comment:
Phew--good thing you remembered. I am lucky in a way, that my husband pays most of the bills. I have an online calendar with reminders set up and it emails me reminders a week head and two days a head--a week to allow mailing time, 2 days to allow online paying. The calendar on the phone synchs with the online calendar and posts notifications. Between all of these, I usually "remember."
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