I’ve been holding off on writing a post about the exact details of my financial nightmare, but I do intend to do so soon. I’ve been waiting for the balance transfers I spoke of a few posts ago to go through, and for that all to settle down so I know exactly what needs to be paid. As things currently stand, 2 of the 3 transfers have credited to their respective accounts, so I should be able to do a wrap up soon.
Until last September, the way I approached paying my bills was…haphazard is putting it nicely. Despite having not officially lived there since 2002, I still have all of my mail delivered to my parents house. Its just across town from me, and I’m generally over there at least twice a week anyway, so getting the mail wasn’t a huge issue. I would gather the mail, and throw it in my purse or my work stuff bag. At some point, usually no more than twice a month, I would pull out all the mail that I’d been collecting, open it, and pay everything that needed to be paid. This method had some distinct disadvantages, such as the fact that I would often wait too long to get to the mail and the bill paying, and things would end up being late. It also meant that I was physically mailing out all of my bills, which only adds to the time problem. Late last summer, I decided that something had to change.
The first thing that I did was to buy a small Moleskine notebook and start tracking all of my accounts. I keep things pretty simple – I list the account name, the total balance, the current APR, the current amount due, and when it is due. Then, I set up all my accounts to be paperless, and to send me email alerts when things are due, or when I get within a certain percentage of the limit on the card. I also only get paid twice a week, so once I got a handle on things, I’ve gotten into the habit of only making entries in the notebook twice a month – Usually the day I get paid, or the day after, I physically visit every one of my accounts, note the balances and such in the book, and parcel out the payments. Its obviously not a system that would work for everyone, but its worked well for me, and I haven’t missed a payment since I started doing it 7 months ago.
It also helps to hold me accountable for my financial mis-steps. I see exactly how much I am paying on credit card interest, and how much I owe overall. In an effort to lower the balances, I’m keeping the amount of cushion in my checking account pretty small, so I’m not terribly comfortable setting up things to auto-debit – the only things I currently have auto-debiting are a $40 student loan bill on the 1st of the month, my car insurance around the 15th, for $62, and $11 a month for life insurance, also around the 15th.
I should be getting paid on or around the 15th, so I’ll do a full financial recap of the outstanding cards, and my grand plan to get it all paid off, then.
