Financial Organization (CoAT 24)

Three motivating factors.

My first motivation came last week when I spent about 8 hours downloading transactions from my credit cards, reconciling bank statements into my Money program, and sorting my filing cabinet. Why so long?  Well, this is embarrassing, but I hadn't reconciled my bank statements or credit cards since September (2009--can you believe that this is the smallest font they offer? not cool.), so I had a million transactions to post.  After that trauma, I've decided that I need to be a bit more regular about downloading and reconciling. 

The second motivation came from my husband.  We've been all across the board on trying to curb spending and save for a house.  Well, we started a budget (way back in 9/09.. which was why I was reconciling then) and we never once looked at it. So, we've decided we'll try again...

And... I realized that I put off large tasks. I generally pay bills all at the end of the month because all the credit card statements, mortgage, and bills are due then.  Well, I don't have trouble paying the bills, but I don't have the energy (or is it will power) to download all the transactions, reconcile the statement and then schedule the payment, so I don't. I just make the payment and put the rest off (obviously.) Well, my third motivation was the realization that I can do it!  I am a bookkeeper for a mechanic and I convinced him to pay his bills online about a year ago.  In order to be able to remember which bills needed be paid, I made a simple little spreadsheet where I could check off which credit cards had been paid. Simple. It's worked great for work, so I just made one for myself. I always worried that I'd forget to pay one card if I paid them throughout the month, so I wouldn't pay anything until I did them all because I was sure I'd be spending more time checking and rechecking to see if they'd been paid.  Which leads me to my goal/plan:

This is similar to my spreadsheet:
 (mine shows the grid)

Payee

2011

Jan

Feb

March

April

May

June

July

Aug

Sept

Oct

Nov

Dec

Amex

Citibank

Chase

Capitol One

Sprint

Mortgage

PUD

And, I've printed a copy. Now, when my bills start arriving, I can get to work immediately. I'm excited to do a bit at a time and not feel overloaded when the end of the month (or the end of the 15 months come...). I'll just download the transactions, reconcile and schedule the payment.... and check it off. Why didn't I think of this earlier?

Backup:  I use Outlook at my reminder calendar.  I've scheduled a "Are your bills all paid" recurring appt for the 28th of every month. When that pops up, I'll pull out my handy-dandy spreadsheet and make sure that they are all checked off!!