Why Waste Money?
Did you know that the average person pays 15 -20 bills a month and average late fees of $4 per month? If you are late with every bill every month, your monthly late fee would be $60-$80. That adds up to $720-$960 per year! And that’s not including interest on some of your bills.
Money is not the issue for most of us when it comes to on-time payments. The issue rests in our ability to stop, sit, and take care of our responsibilities. Just like eating healthy and exercising, it all boils down to discipline, or the lack of. I use to be a major late payer. I was so busy “making money” that I hadn’t noticed that some of it was falling out of the hole in my pocket.
I decided that I must get myself into the habit of handling my responsibilities on time. At first, I would pencil it into my planner. But that never worked because, although I would see it, I would tell myself that I would handle my bills as soon as I got home. Then that turned into as soon as I returned a few calls, or as soon as I took a quick shower, or as soon as…
I realized that what I had to do was to find what worked for me. I tried the on-line thing, but that only worked if I took the time out to actually get on-line. Auto payment works well, but not all bills accept this method, so that brought me back to the same problem.
Over coffee, I explained to my girlfriends how I could never just sit and get the tedious job of bill paying out of the way. I quickly learned that they all had the same issue. Now, once a month, we get together for “bill coffee payments”. We make it a point to remain silent for the first thirty minutes to write checks. Then we sit back and cut-up.
If discipline is an issue for you, search yourself to find what will work for you, and put it into action.
