Managing Monthly Bills Part 2 of 2

This article is the second of a two-part article examining how to manage your monthly bills.

Now that you've learned to take advantage of a calendar to synch your bill payments and have less to worry about at random times, it's time to take the bill paying up a level. This article covers:

• Factoring bills into other monthly expenses
• The variability of some bills.
• Automating payments.

One of the overarching messages of the article is that the law of averages always works for you: keeping track of any given item over an extended period of time will give you a good idea of what it should cost every time.

• Factoring bills into other monthly expenses: Having your bills in synch and being able to know when to pay them gives you a great deal of control over your budget. But it is important to understand how much of your budget is left over after all bill payments. The Bill Manager is a great tool to use in this respect. Tracking your other monthly expenses such as entertainment and transportation costs over several months will give you a good idea of how much money you spend.
  
  The best way to do this is on a weekly basis so that you know how much money of your paycheck you need to allocate to bills and how much you have left over in savings. Doing this over several months will create a better understanding of the inflows and outflows you have over several categories. For a simple example, if you realize you are spending $100 for rent and you get paid $200 every two weeks, you know you need to use the remaining money as your budget over those two weeks.
  
• The variability of bills: Some bills are always changing. Examples include your cell phone bill, heating bills, and anything else that is not fixed like rent and car payments. Again, the law of averages will work for you. If you tend to spend $50 on your cell phone each month, budget that amount. However, if you have highly variable spending, with $50 one month and $100 another, budget the higher amount. Any money left over will be yours to spend, or even better, put into a high-interest savings account.

• Automating payments: Making monthly payments can get annoying really quickly, even if you have everything planned out and are on top of your calendar. The best thing to do in this scenario is to subscribe to as many automatic payments as you can. Some banks allow you to do this through the bank, others leave it up to you to organize automatic payments through your creditors' websites. Either way, sign up.
  
  This doesn't mean you should stop monitoring what is going on with your accounts. In fact, this makes it even easier to track all of your expenses and figure out which days your bills are due. You don't have to worry about paying on time, and you can be in control of the situation.

In summary, while bill payment and organization can be confusing, there are a few tricks that make it easier and leave you worrying about the good stuff: what to do with the money that doesn't go to bills.