Top Banner

SpendFlix42

Weekly Correspondent

• Thurman
• TFCU Marketing Rep
• Screen Fiend
• Felix v Oscar
• Fast Food / Yes
• Savings Account / No
• Impulsive

Contact »

Skills To Pay The Bills: When You Gotta Start Signing The Checks

0 Comments | Post a Comment |

“Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.” ~Minna Antrim

Destiny gives me a wonderful gift every year, and no matter how much I beg or plea for something different, it’s always the same thing…me getting older. And with getting older it means I get to have more, more, and (did I mention?) more responsibilities (that’s a nice way of saying all things not fun).

When I was a kid I wanted more than anything to be a grown-up, and now that I’m an adult I would give almost anything to be a kid again. Back then, all I had to do was go to school (with the reward of summer/winter breaks for all my hard work), clean up one room (something I didn’t even do very often) and wash the dishes. Heck, I even got paid for doing those easy tasks! And the best thing, of course, is that I didn’t have to pay for anything (thanks, Mom & Dad), so all the cash I made was mine to keep! Or spend, as was often the case.

Now it’s a different story. I have to go to work everyday (no breaks there, buddy), clean up an entire house (and I used to complain about the one room), and I still have to wash dishes! I now have to pay for a house (and all the things to keep the house running), a car payment and, as of this year, I now have to provide my own medical insurance! And, get this, they want money every month from me or they start, you know, turning things off or charging me more money for not giving them money on time. So in order to do this I needed to get…um, what’s that word? Oh yeah. Responsible.

So I set up a little plan. My plan may not work for everyone, but it works for me. I like to pay my bills in order of importance – basically prioritizing the ones that would have the most negative consequence if not paid on time. Also, I’m enrolled in automatic bill pay on my lower bills like cable and my cell phone. I set it up that way so that I’ll know that they’ll always be paid on time (I won’t have the opportunity to forget them). Plus, it’s “green,” because I don’t send out envelopes or paper checks (yeah, I’m cool like that).

So my question is, how do you pay the bills and what are some of your plans and ideas for surviving bill time every month?