Bills Bills and More Bills

When you begin on your path through separation and divorce, everything seems overwhelming.  Just getting up in the morning can be an ordeal.  Suddenly you may find yourself in deep despair, and along with that, it seems,  you have a million more responsibilities that you may or may not know how to tackle.

I made many mistakes in the beginning.  One major one was allowing my soon to be ex to continue to pay the bills.  Oddly I still wanted to trust my X and thought he cared.  What was I thinking?  I wasn’t thinking at all, I was on auto pilot.  If you find yourself in this place in your life please put everything in your name that you possibly can and quickly as you can.  Don’t trust someone who is breaking your heart with anything in your life.

I found in the beginning, when I did finally take over my finances,  I was extremely disorganized.  I was often late on payments not because I did not have the money to pay but because I was treading water in an unknown land.

Just how bad can it be if you are late or miss a payment?  Well,  let’s just say it is not good.  If we are late we could incur late fees, money that could spend on something else, say a glass of wine out with a friend.  Sounds better than a late fee.  At times being late on payments can increase your interest fees.  Being late can damage our credit scores. These are all things we do not want.

One of my biggest mistakes was being late on a credit card payment.  I was not very late, just a couple of days.  Yes, I had a late fee but worse than that I temporally lost my home and car insurance.  Why?  Because the monthly payment to my insurance company was pulled out of my credit card.  Lesson learned.

What I am doing right now is not perfect but it is working.  I bought a planner on Amazon..

 

(if you buy this planner on Amazon I will get a % with no cost to you)

This organizer has blank monthly calendars and pages to list your bills and take notes.  If you click on the link you will be able to sample photos.   Like I said, there is a ton more organization to be done, on my part,  but this is a simple way to keep track of upcoming monthly due dates.  So in that regard it is working.

There are many ways to stay organized.

*Set aside times to pay bills and stick to it.  Write it on your daily planner so you won’t forget.

*In many cases you can set up automatic bill pay.

*Pay bills online.

*My daughter uses an excel spread sheet to keep track of her bills.

There are many options.  Let me know what works for you or if you have any advice.

(Disclaimer…I am not a professional bill payer…this is just what works for me:-)

Take care and stay organized.

KathieyV:-)