Bills and Mail organization for WOTH busy families

[amldaley]

DD is 14 mo old and I WOTH 45-50+ hours per week. DH is an active duty Marine, out of the house 50+ hours per week and he often travels.

We have never really developed a good system for bill paying and files and records keeping, but now that we barely manage laundry, trash and baby upkeep it has gotten really bad.

DH just doesn't seem to "get it" and I do all of the "mental parenting" (a phrase learned here at BBB!) and my job is very mentally and emotionally taxing. I "get" it but am terrible about actually following through.

There seems to be an endless chain of mail, junk mail, bills, blah blah blah that either never get opened, get lost, get opened and never dealt with, etc.

We have no excuse. We are ridiculous. We are two highly intelligent people who can't seem to get it together and get organized, even in the simplest fashion.

So, if you area dual-WOTH family with little to no time at home as it is, how do you do it? What is your system? DETAILS, please!!!!!!!

[Mom to Brandon and 2 cats]

Our mail gets stuck in a mailbox slot in the front door. As soon as we walk in the house, we're literally standing in the mail.

What I've done is put an office-sized trash bin at the front door. Also near the front door is the stairs going up. The first thing I do is take 30 seconds to go through the mail. Junk mail goes unopened, into the trash can. The rest of the mail gets deposited on the steps.

After the kids go to sleep, I take all of the bills and put them on top of the laptop. That way, as soon as I log in, I know to pay the bills. The great thing about my bank is that they do automatic bill pay, so I can log in and set it to pay on a certain date. If I do this as soon as the bill arrives, then I don't forget. Opened and paid bills go into a basket underneath the table that the laptop lives, and gets shredded every 6 months or so.

Everything else (retirement statements, bank statements, etc). to go DH. Usually he'll look at them to see if there's something noteable, and give them bank to me. They'll then go into the same basket under the laptop table.

Works for us! Before I discovered the auto bill pay and was writing checks, and boy, did I hate to be in charge of the financial management for the household.

--Jennifer

[niccig]

I agree with going through the mail EVERY day and throwing out junk mail. Then you need a place to put the bills/letters you have to reply to. It doesn't matter if it's a basket or a bills organizing. Just make sure you put ALL your bills there. Then you have to set a time each week to pay the bills. I agree with billpayer - it makes it much easier. I also have set up auto payments in billpayer for things like mortgage etc. I only have to write one or two checks a month now. The trick is to make it routine. You can also have billpayer send you an email on a set day of the month to remind you to pay a bill.

As for filing, there are a few ways to do it. One is to do it by month. All October's paperwork gets put in the October 2009 file. And in October 2010, you go through it and get rid of what you don't need to keep, which will be most of it. I know some people here use this technique and it works for them. It doesn't for me, as we can claim some things on taxes, so I have to keep some of those bills. So, I got a 31 slot expanding file. I can put gas bill in one section, phone bill in another. At tax time, DH can easily look through them. I've been meaning to set up Quicken, as that would be even easier to see what our phone bill was for tax return etc. After DH does the taxes, I take out all the paperwork I have to keep for taxes and it goes in an envelope and stored for the 7 years we need to keep it. I shred anything I don't need to keep. In the filing cabinet, I keep things like mortgage, life insurance etc as those are the permanent files that I need to have access to.

There are so many ways to organise your files. I think the trick is to find the easiest way for YOU. My way may not work for you, so experiment until you find something that works.

[amldaley]

We have all our files set up in our office upstairs - our issue is getting the stuff up there!

I like the idea of the trash can by the door. When we had a PO Box, I would collect the mail then stand at the counter and toss all the junk in the bin before even leaving the post office.

We have auto pay for many items but abou a year ago, right after dd was born, it failed for some reason and we have been scrambling to get it all together again since then.

I also like the idea of using my laptop space as a location for must-do stuff...must do before playing online!!!!

Great ideas from you both - thank you!!!!

[mytwosons]

I have a nice accordian type file that has a label for each slot. The first slot is for "bills to pay" and whenever a bill arrives, it goes right in the slot. The other slots are to file the bills once they are paid (1 slot for utility, 1 for car payment, etc.), copies of investment and retirement statements, tax receipts, various things for my sons (report cards, something special I don't want to throw out, etc.) and a misc. I start a new file in January and the old gets put in a closet.

Oh, I only pay bills once per month. I do online bill payment, so I can just schedule them not to pay until they are due, but I often don't bother. I figure parting with my money a few days early is an ok trade for reduced stress.

And, we touch the mail once when it comes in the house. Bills get filed and junk gets recycled immediately.

ETA: I like the accordian file because I keep it near the laptop, so I don't have to take things up to the office. If someone is coming over, it's 2 seconds to run the file upstairs. BTW, I did buy a more expensive, stylish filing system, and I think that has helped me use it....

[kijip]

This is the system that developed for us when we were both working and we were caring for my mother and as such had NO TIME or ENERGY. Everything we owe besides our mortgage is paid automatically to one credit card. Everything we spend by and large goes on the same credit card. There is a reminder on my computer calendar set to remind me to pay the credit card (we pay in full, it's like cash to us in that it does not build up debt) and the mortgage, by the 10th of the month. My husband has a reminder set up to pay the gas card off each month.

Mail is immediately dealt with. There is a recycling bin by the door for this. Catalogs, Magazines we get but never asked for, junk mail, donation solicits we are not interested in etc goes in the recycle immediately. I do this as I take off my shoes, while in the entryway before I go upstairs.

While barefoot and downstairs, I toss a couple of things in the office off the entryway:

Stuff that we are still getting addressed to my FIL gets recycled but I take a pen and fill in the address and put it in a printed postcard I ran off that says "Dr. So and So is deceased as of November 2006. Please update your records to reflect this and remove this address from your mailing list. Thank you." I still get enough of this crap to warrant having stamped postcards on hand, on the desk!!!

Stuff that we need to keep but don't need to act on goes in a bin on the desk in the office until we can file it (Bank statements, investment statements, Explanation of Benefits from insurance, credit car statement that we pay online, utility bill that is auto paid etc). I also toss things to that did not come in the mail that I want to keep here- receipts for BIG purchases, copies of medical appointment write-ups, paystubs. Once every so often I go though and file this loosely. There was a time I did that every week. But now, once a month and I consider it a success. The main thing is that it is ALL CONTAINED until it is filed and not strewn around the house in 47 different places- we had gotten there in the beginning of the bad part of my mom's illness and it was driving me INSANE.

The stuff that we do need to act on (the random bill that is not on autopay, donation envelopes for things we want to support etc goes in a "bills binder" that lives in one spot. This gets cleaned out a couple times a month and gives me time to verify we owe it. I have a binder where all the school stuff that I have dealt with but need for future reference goes as well.

Then everything else walks upstairs with me:

Invitations or event flyers we want go on the front of our wall calendar, where I won't forget to call people or respond/register. Once a week when my husband and I are doing a clean sweep of the house, these get added to the calendar and tossed. Credit card rewards (Amazon) go here so we remember to add them to our account and use them. If it has not been used by the time we are cleaning, one of us grabs the computer and adds the code and then recycles it. We sometimes give these away as small gifts too.

Information we don't need to act on but want to read before we toss (newsletters, the grocery circular, flyers for school events, ads for plays etc) goes in a bin on our Wall Organizer. It gets recycled when it gets read or, if it is still there and unread during the weekly clean sweep of the house, it gets recycled.

Magazines we are interested in go in basket in the living room. When the basket gets full, the ones we are done with get tossed or the ones that have gone untouched for a few weeks get tossed.

Very little comes up the stairs, leaving the living space free and clear of paper and the papers that come in to the house all have a space. We do not have a ton of time, but if I do this everyday it is as fast and easy as taking off my shoes and coat.

[Katigre]

Every single bill we have, from water to mortgage to credit card, is paid automatically. I file the statements every few months and look them over to make sure there's no mistakes, but I love not having to remember to send in payments.

Edit: This system only works if you have a month or two of extra income in your checking account so in case a bill is surprisingly high it doesn't bounce your account. I also prefer this system when paychecks are direct-deposited too.

[cvanbrunt]

I'd take a look at fantastic program called Mint.com. It's not just online bill paying. It actually "links" all of your accounts together in a single location (mortgage, credit cards, utility bills, bank accounts, any brokerage accounts). That way, there's only one place to look. It also notifies you via email when something is due, or you have spent your limit in a particular category (like if you set a restaurant budget), and when a fee has been charged to an account. It has an iPhone App too which is very handy.

[amldaley]

I'd take a look at fantastic program called Mint.com. It's not just online bill paying. It actually "links" all of your accounts together in a single location (mortgage, credit cards, utility bills, bank accounts, any brokerage accounts). That way, there's only one place to look. It also notifies you via email when something is due, or you have spent your limit in a particular category (like if you set a restaurant budget), and when a fee has been charged to an account. It has an iPhone App too which is very handy.

how safe is that, though? I would hope with a name like "mint", it would be as secure as one!!! I love that idea!!! And heck, I am dying to use my iphone for something useful!!

[doberbrat]

I toss 'junk' mail immediately. things that need to be reviewed but not today (like retirement statements) get tossed onto the table

bills get opened on the spot so I can see a total and I look at them when I have time. I make a mental note how much I owe.

I pay ALL bills on line. dont own a checkbook.

so I log on 1-2x a week and pay billls. I pay what I remember I owe. If I cant remember how much I owe, I just pay what I think it is and true up either way I dont hit any late fees.

works for us