Day 12:       Automate Your Bill Paying And Financial Life.
 

    Set up your Expenses worksheet.  If you don’t have my book, Don’t Make Me Slap You (yet J), you can set this up in Excel or just on a sheet of paper.

    List all your monthly expenses in a column.  Next to each one, list how much you pay each month.  If you are pay a set amount on your credit cards, put down what you are paying.  If you pay off your credit cards each month and it fluctuates, look to see if the amount varies by much each month and shoot for an average.  

    It might look like this:

Mortgage                                  $1,500

Electric                                         175

Water                                            85

Cable                                             50

MasterCard                                    200

Visa                                             350

Car Insurance                                  74

Life Insurance                                 32

And so on.

    This isn’t the scary part yet.  Remember, this is a baby step.   All you have to do today is take a look at the worksheet and fill in as many blanks as possible.  Don’t worry about that ghastly total. 

    Now, look to see what bills are already being paid automatically.

    What bills can be put on automatic payment.

    If (and only if) you are disciplined about paying off your credit cards every month, have all your bills get charged to one credit card and pay off that card every month.  You won’t have to worry about which bill is due when, finding stamps, finding envelopes, finding the bill, late fees, etc. 

    If you can’t promise me that you will pay off your credit card every month, then have the bills automatically debited from your checking or savings account each month.  We will work on that tomorrow.