I was chatting with a friend on New Year’s Eve and he mentioned in passing that he had this one bill that he was consistently forgetting to pay and incurring a late fee. I mentioned to him how I keep track of when my bills are due and he seemed to think it was a neat idea so I thought I’d share it here.
It was an idea born of laziness more than anything else. I needed a calendar system with the ability to create recurring appointments with reminders that both my husband and I could see. Filling out a paper calendar with each bill on each month seemed like a little too much. We had recently started using a Google Calendar to keep track of appointments and travel plans when my husband suggested I create a second one for bills. It turns out this is the perfect solution for us.
So here’s a few of the technical details…
You need a Gmail account (or an email account hosted by Google). You should automatically get access to Google Calendar when the account is created. There’s an ability to create multiple calendars under that single account. I created appointments under the newly created calendar that recur monthly. I set the appointment for a few days prior to it’s due date so I’ve got some time to pay it. The items that can’t be paid online (which is only 1 for me), I set a reminder notice in the appointment and it emails me a week prior to the due date so I remember to mail the check. This can also be done with other bills you find yourself forgetting.
I even put the bills on the calendar that are autopaid. I’ll title the appointment “Electric – autopaid” so I know it’s one of the autopaid bills. It’s one of the ways I keep track of what’s coming so I’m never short on funds or surprised by a bill. Because I’ve got a terrible memory once I’ve paid a bill, I update that calendar notice to say “paid” at the end so that I know I’ve paid it. When you edit the notice it will give you a few options for changing the appointment and I just select “This Instance”. That makes it so that it only changes the specific day you’re on and not all the future or past appointments. This gives you the “quick check” that you need to know if you’ve paid all your bills. I just do a quick scan of the calendar to see if there’s anything that doesn’t have a “paid” or “autopaid” in the next week or 2 that needs to be paid.
It’s a little time consuming to setup but once you’ve got it the way you need it, it doesn’t require any upkeep.
Please leave questions in the comments section if you have them and I’ll clarify as necessary.