We have officially gone paperless!!!
I decided I wanted to get rid of all the clutter and papers around the house, so my resolution to the clutter --- going paperless with all our bills. I now have almost all of our bills coming with the paperless option, with the exception of our rent and water bill since they don't have that option. This is such a great money saving option, because not only do the bills come in my email, but I also pay them all online, which saves money on stamps and checks. Plus, it's much better for the environment since we aren't printing a bunch of bills. AND the bills come a lot faster, which I really love!!
I was very hesitant to switch over to online billing, as I had many concerns; many of which I'm sure several of you have. I was super worried that I would forget to pay a bill since I wouldn't have it sitting in front of me when I went to pay bills. I worried I wouldn't be able to track the payments. I worried that I would end up wasting more money because I'd be printing the bills so I could still have a paper copy. However, none of these fears actually surfaced once I actually went paperless.
For me, baby steps were key to be sure I didn't miss a due date or get overwhelmed with switching over. First, I started with our cell phone bill and starting receiving that as an online bill. I've been paying it online for quite some time, so at least I have been saving the time and money, since I haven't been mailing it. Eventually, I switched the rest of my bills to paperless and began my new filing system.
Originally, I used to file my bills by due date, then pay as necessary. Now that they're all paperless, I have a calendar with all the due dates on it (ok, so I'm not 100% paperless quite yet). I have to be able to visualize the bills and when they're due comparatively to our pay dates. I also keep a digital calendar through Google Calendars, which syncs with my iPhone. Their calendar is AWESOME (more to come later on that)!! With Google Calendar, I have reminders that go off a week or 2 in advance, just depending on the bill, to be sure they've been paid. Basically, I just use it as a way to double-check myself.
Now that all my bills are paperless and I receive the notifications in my email, I save a copy of the bill in it's specific folder with the bill due date. I recommend naming folders very specifically. The folders I have named on my computer are Apartment, Credit Cards, Student Loans etc. Then each folder has a sub-folder with each company, i.e. Ameren, Discover, etc. Once the bill is paid, I then update the name with the paid date, so I can always track it. For example, Ameren Due 010511 Paid 121410.
I've learned quite a bit about online billing. It's really a great feature that I love to use now! I love that I can always go back to view, print or save my previous bills. Some companies even have an archive system that goes back years, if I ever need it. So is it really necessary to save them? I'm not sure yet. My main reasoning for doing it is for the tracking of the due/paid dates. Plus, if the website is ever down and I need to view my bill, I have it readily available. Who knows, I'm sure I'll end up with an excel sheet to better document my dates and bills. I just love Excel!!
Does anyone have any other suggestions for organizing online bills? What other ways do you organize your bills?
I have a special folder in my gmail that all my bill-related emails and reminders and logins go in, so it's easier to find them if I need to.
ReplyDeleteI have our bills set up through my Busey account, so it sends me reminders for all of them. I also use the auto-pay when it's available, so all I have to worry about is double checking every so often that they're getting paid when I tell them to.
First of all, how do you have a FOLDER in gmail?? I'd really like to how how that was possible!! I've only been able to make labels. Am I missing something? But I do have something similar with my labels, too.
ReplyDeleteI haven't quite gotten up to speed with the auto-pay yet. I suppose I just worry that there would be some "chance" that something would go wrong with it, however at some point we may make our way in that direction, too.
Label was what I meant, I just couldn't think of what they were called! :)
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