pay my bills on time

Ella78, a felllow 43T, mentioned something I’m going to start doing: checking my account balances daily. I often have returned payments due to insufficient funds. If I check my account more often, I’d know there wasn’t enough money in there or realize that I’d spent money frivolously or that my cell bill was $300 and that I was now $300 poorer. Good luck to you!

Speaking of that $300 cell phone bill, I’m totally against letting companies automatically deduct funds from my account every month. Automatic deductions make it easy to ignore the print outs and really examine your statements. My cell phone company recently deducted $300 from my account, before I realized my bill was so high. That hurt. Really hurt.

Before I can even talk about paying my bills on time, I need to catch up on the old ones. Today, I caught up on 3 bills (cable, phone, and home insurance). I called the insurance company today, and it turns out that they didn’t cancel the policy. For some reason, my keystrokes just didn’t register in the automated system. So, I paid the policy’s balance for the remainder of the year.

When I was in college, a friend of mine used to have a calendar hanging on her closet. She’d mark down when all of her bills were due. I’m going to adopt her method instead of trying to remember all of these due dates, or delude myself into thinking I’ll pay the bills when they come in the mail (or when I come home from work, or on the weekend, etc.) There are some bills that I have literally forgotten about (like the house insurance). And for others, I see the “due date” as really meaning “the bill is due up to 29 days after the due date to avoid reporting to the credit bureaus.” The problem is, I can’t remember whether my minimum payments are for one month month or two months. It’s all mush up in my head. I find myself constantly worrying that I’ll wake up or come home one day to find some utility or the other shut off due to nonpayment. I have had to call the cable or phone company in the middle of the day to get the utilities turned back on. I constantly scramble for the ringing phone and look at the Caller ID to see if it’s one of my creditors. What a stressful way to live. I’m lying to everyone, worrying that my secrets will be discovered. The sad part is, I can actually afford to pay my bills on time. I have more than enough and am blessed. Call it laziness.

To Do: 1) Catch up on all the other late bills; 2) Mark the due dates on my calendar.

I am notoriously bad about paying bills on time. It’s not as if I don’t have enough money to pay them. I don’t know what my problem is. I just happened to check my mail yesterday, and realized that the house insurance bill was due February 27th. When I tried to pay it by phone, the recording said there was no such account – which leads me to believe the insurance has been dropped – again. Damn damn damn. Now I’ll have to call them and see whether they’ll reinstate the policy – again (b/c the same thing happened several months ago). If they don’t reinstate it, I’ll have to find another insurance compant ASAP. Once again, I’ve let other folks down.

Because of my late payments, my credit card interest rate is about 29% and the late fees keep increasing the balance. I need to get my life together. This makes no sense.