How to Keep Track of your Monthly Bills
Online Banking: Find out if your bank provides this option free or for a small charge. It makes it easier to look up all the checks that have come back to the bank for processing, especially if you believe you've made a checkbook mistake. Although you may lose the option of receiving cancelled checks with your monthly statement, you can get photocopies if the need should arise. The convenience of online banking can put your mind at ease by allowing you to access your account information any time of the day or night, whenever a question comes up.
Pay your monthly bills at one time: Even if you get paid weekly or bi-weekly, consider collecting all your household bills in one location, such as a basket or file on your desk, and sitting down to pay them all at the end of the month. Check due-dates to make sure this is reasonable for all your accounts, and if not, call to see if you can get the due-date changed so that the bill can be paid at month's end. Benefits include saving time by doing all the bills at once, being able to ensure all the usual expenses have come in and that none are missing, and running a practiced eye over your checking account as the balance decreases with each payment.
File past receipts in record boxes: Label them with the beginning and ending dates of the receipts that are stored inside. Keep the boxes on shelves or out of harm's way from things such as a flood or pests. And you will be able to easily check old records by knowing where they are at as well as having them clearly marked by month and year. Experts recommend keeping past receipts for up to seven years.
Keep a monthly budget in addition to your checkbook register: The budget outlines what you planned to pay for each expense. Next to that, in a column marked by the month and date, indicate what was actually paid, which will show any discrepancy clearly. Write this by hand on a sheet of paper, perhaps in a notebook, so you have a separate page for each month. Or keep an online monthly budget in a similar format. Either way, at a glance you will get a pretty good idea of how close you're sticking to the budget and whether you are under or overdrawn for the month.
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