Simplifying Your Bills
There are many ways you can do this and a ton of benefits for doing it; like adding time to your life, feeling confident about your finances, saving the planet and so on.
Here are three things that I do to help keep our finances organized.
Electronic: Paper vs. eBills — Do you ever have dreams that the basket you put all the daily mail in is chasing you? I used to and then I knew it was time to get that basket under control. One way to do this is to elect to receive electronic bills versus a paper bill in the mail. It’s safe and secure, whether you decide to have it sent to your email inbox or elect for eBills through your online banking provider. Both options are password protected with other tech savvy identity confirmations. You can also receive alerts and notifications. Talk about time-saving and being environment-friendly.
Automate Bills With Online Bill Pay — As I mentioned, most online banking providers provide eBills as an option with their bill pay service. The bills you receive every month (utilities, car payment, mortgage/rent, etc) you can pay with the click of a mouse. Or you can set rules in bill pay that will automatically pay those bills for you — yes, please! Again, time-saving and once you get everything set-up it is a worry and hassle free process.
FinanceWorks — An online money management tool provided by Fort Worth Community Credit Union. As part of the benefits of being a member of FTWCCU, our family has access to see our finances in a “big picture” way (think pretty colorful pie charts). Finance Works allows us to manage our cash flow and know where we’re spending our money. The transactions are automatically categorized into categories that we created. Using FinanceWorks helps us to stay within our budget.
What do you do to organize your finances? I’m always looking for more tips to save time. Let’s talk about it in the comments.
Savings Tip: And while you’re organizing your finances don’t forget to register to receive electronic statements (or e-statements) for your bank and credit card accounts. The benefits for doing so could be another blog post.
