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Blog: If Your Money Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy
 If Your Money Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy…Especially the One Paying the Bills!
If you are the bill payer in the home or the financial manager, you know how tedious and overwhelming paying bills every month can be, especially if life is already busy. I hear ya! I'm that person in our home and of course for SYSTEMIZE too. Sometimes trying to sit down and do the bills can be the last thing you feel like doing because nobody can see you did anything, even if it did take hours. Whether you manage your finances in your home or business, it's time to simplify the bill paying process. These three quick tips will help you in either paper paying or online paying. This is part of my process and I don't share anything with anyone else unless it works!
Managing your money is not as hard as some make it out to be. Yes, it is a chore that needs to be done on a regular basis to make it effective, but money affects you every day. Money affects you mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually…if this doesn't convince you it's worth it, I'm not sure what will. If money affects you every day then you need to think about what you are doing with it every day. Make the process simpler and easier, you will benefit from it especially in your bank account!
Here's my three quick tips to help make bill paying
- Simplify the bill paying process to one or two times per month.
Whether you get paid monthly, bi-monthly, weekly this technique will work for you. I always use the first and fifteenth of the month for my pay dates. For one thing this is when my husband gets paid, but it helps me put my bills in these two categories…I know it sounds simple, that's how I roll! Even in my Quicken (used for my personal finances) I don't put the due date for the bill, I simply put it due on the first or fifteenth. It makes budgeting money SO much easier.
- One bank makes life easier, especially online.
Since my husband is military, we have some perks with some institutions that offer bank accounts, credit card, insurance, mortgage, investments, etc.! This is great for using online. I can easily pay my insurance from my checking, both from the same institution, online on the same website. Not to mention pay my credit card by transferring money between accounts and easily transfer money from checking to savings. They also offer paying my other bills through Web Bill Pay. I have to admit I was gun shy of this for a long time but the past year to two years I have used it to pay most my bills that aren't drafted. It saves so much on postage and you can put the amount in and tell it when to pay the bill even if it's the next week…this would be great for someone paid on a weekly basis! Start searching for an institution that can offer you lots of services like the ones above.
- The BIGGEST tip of all to simplify your bill paying…
Don't have so many bills! Simplify them to the very basics. Having credit card debt and having bills come in from every credit card is not only unnecessary it is adding so much more confusion to bill paying. I like having only the basic bills so if something like a doctor bill comes in, no big deal. Why have so many extra bills, more paper to keep track of and so much more headaches trying to figure out how to pay them when you can simplify it! If you have more than ten bills per month you really need to analyze what's unnecessary versus necessary. It can be easy to just pay the bills rather than really look at the facts of why you have so many. If possible, eliminate some by choosing another alternative or packaging some services to one provider. Paying off your big bills and then moving on to the smaller ones will not only reduce the number of bills you have it will also start putting more money in your pocket and get you closer to being smart and making your money happy…isn't that what this is all about anyway? If your money starts getting happier, so will you or the person paying the bills!
posted on: 11/7/2007 11:30:00 AM by Triste Horrell
category: Finances
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If Your Money Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy
by Triste Horrell
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About Triste:
Being an organizing expert makes one want to be a "showroom" in all areas of life. However reality can hit hard when you're a mother of small children and a military wife and own an organzing business. Of course Triste would like to have a picture perfect Better Home and an even Better Garden. Throw a Pottery Barn in the backyard for exceptional creative time to become the wiz-woman for all the ideas and inventions that the world could not live without. But Triste has settled on the fact of telling herself "I can be perfect in my mind and no one can mess up my space there!" In reality Triste is very self-motivated and has true business accomplishments like having SYSTEMIZE since 1997, the first home and business organizing firm in the state of South Carolina. She has been repeatedly recognized in her Greenville, SC area for her organizing expertise and makeovers on local NBC and FOX news, Greenville News, local magazines such as Greenville Magazine and Upstate Parent and NPR radio. She has turned people's lives around by focusing on what she calls the "four building blocks of being organized" consisting of space, time, financial and personal. This is even represented in her business logo. "That's what I'm in business for, turning people's lives around!" Also applying her popular 3 Steps to Systemize have not only organized her clients but KEPT them organized for years.
Triste's Website:
www.systemize4u.com
Downtime Activities
- Reading Magazines
- Spending time at our cottage
- Keeping our Westie pretty
- Putting tealights around after the kids are in bed
- Adventures with my awesome hubby
- Making microwave smores...just for me
1 graham cracker, broken in half 1 small piece of chocolate 1 big marshmellow On one side of cracker put piece of chocolate and marshmellow on top. Place in microwave and heat for approx. 17 seconds (while cooking replace marshmellow on top of chocolate if needed). Put other half of cracker on top, eat and enjoy and watch out for oozing chocolate!
My Organizing Tool-Box
- Time - Outlook
This is a great way to keep papers off the desk and track where you need to go, task list, jot down quick notes on the virtual "post-its, keep up with contacts in the virtual Rolodex
- Personal Finances - Quicken
This simple yet practical program keeps your bank accounts in tact...did I mention simple?!
- Business Finances - QuickBooks
I have used this program for years and have set many clients up on it. It is a must for keeping track of business transactions and keeping tax time easy...push a few buttons and out come the reports, your done and your tax preparer loves you.
- Space - turntables
I love these things! You can put them in cabinets, the fridge, garage, and closets. They are inexpensive, easy to find and available at any discount store and you can even find fancier ones. If you are not sure what they are, they are the white (or other fancier kinds) and spin around like a lazy susan, you can have a single or double-tier one for spices.
- Personal - Magazines and Internet
I love to look at magazines and the internet for good articles on personal development, pictures for decorating inspiration and fun projects to do with my family. I keep my magazine subscriptions to a minimum (3) so I can read them and enjoy each one. I look for things on some of my favorite websites for whatever fancies me at that time.
- Online Recipe Boxes
Use these on some of your favorite websites, bring the laptop into the kitchen while the recipe is up and you never have to have the paper clutter. One of my and my husbands favorites is Williams-Sonoma.
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www.OnlineOrganizing.com is a service mark of Bradford, LLC.
