Help yourself to pay bills

With recent talk of high electric and gas bills to heat and run your home, It reminds me of how I over came most of my bills.

First off I was never taught how to manage money. So I struggled for many years and still do in some aspects. But the best thing that ever happened to me was direct deposit for my payroll. I made it easier for me to allocate money for monthly bills. I know this seams stupid for a lot of you but some of us never experienced growing up in a home that was finically stable.

Since getting direct deposit (20yrs ago) I have taken and enrolled most of my monthly bills in the direct deposit system. Payments that are fixed are easy but bills that fluctuate like propane and electric can be done also. For instance my propane use averages out to be about $1800 on a average year so i deposit a little more than I need from each paycheck into that account. By the time fall comes around I have enough to prebuy for the whole year (and at a cheaper price)

The amount I get to put in my check book each week is a very small pile compared, but it is mine and in the long run I have more to spend or save by not having to decide what bill to pay each week. Again to a lot of you it is simple budgeting but for some of us it is a struggle.

Great thread, a lot of folks, especially young, need a plan. As you mentioned, not everyone was taught this by their parents, or otherwise.

Learned how to manage money when my wife and I got married years ago. The money we made at work went to paying bills and groceries. We never used that money for fun. We both had our own side hobbies that we made money for the extra things. We stuck to that for many years and it really helped us out.

Also use direct deposit and talked to Consumers energy about the need to set a fixed monthly amount .
They placed me on a budget plan for seniors and so far i have been a month extra at the end of the year.
$150 a month right now went up $25 a couple of years ago , but is nice to have set amounts for auto payments .
Seemed very accommodating when i explained fixed incomes and failing memories.
You might want to inquire if you have that option.

This is a great topic.

I found that guardrails in life can keep me out of the ditch. In other words, I allocate money directly to bills, retirement, investments, land, etc. via direct payment/deposit so I never even see it in the general checking account. Neither does my wife--IMPORTANT.

That sounds pretty complicated. So complicated in fact, I think if you can budget all those accounts and numbers you could have a better paying job so you didn’t have to do all that?

It's actually simple. And some of the online solutions make it easy to track.

Blaine county very nicely stated. But my complaint with the initial post is that I check all my credit card purchases and I find mistakes about every 6 months. The most recent one I bought new flares for the boat, left the store and then read the date = only had 6 onths to go before being out of date. I went back in and the store said they just got them, read the date a returned me my money if form of credit to my card. I still have not seen that show up on my card, but they did the transaction right in front of me and the charge was listed last month. We are working on that right now. Both th store and me have contacted the company????? I have yet to trust Credit cards enough to automatically have them take money out.......jk

Electric rates will keep increasing. I'm thinking about getting a5 year loan for 20k or so to put in a 10kw solar system. The payment would be around 500 per month but gone after 5 years . So while higher than my electric bill after 5 years I will have a very small bill if any. My bill is around 350 I summer and 150 in winter.

The goal is to have less bill each month so I can take a job closer to home that will be a large pay cutbut I can be home more.

Now I live to work I want to work to live instead.

payroll deductions and sinking funds are great ideas. We Pay ourselves bi weekly for "car fund". Need a newer car...we have the money sitting in the account to write the check when needed.

401k and retirement come out automatically too. We budget every paycheck together on a shared online spreadsheet with all bills.

House is paid off now, so that frees up quite a bit each month too.

Sounds like the envelope system.

When we were starting out, we really struggled. We have a little more cushion now that we're older.

We had an envelope for groceries, one for gas, one for the electric bill...etc. On pay day, the check got divided up into our envelopes. When an envelope was empty, we stopped spending in that category until pay day. It was tough but it kept us from blowing money. But it didn't work until we discovered a secret...

We needed an envelope for fun money. We tried to follow our system for years but never put in that pressure relief valve for having some fun. We always dug into other envelopes for a pizza or a couple of games at the bowling alley. We didn't spend a lot on fun but there was zero budget for fun so we always broke our own rules when trying to follow the budget.

We're not very smart so it took us several years to figure out that we're going to spend some money on entertainment so we had better budget for it. At first, it was $25 per month each. As we made a little more money, our fun money fund got a little bigger. It was never very big but a dinner out a couple of times a month really made it easier to stick to the rest of the budget.

Just ran through our budget last week. Trying to get our debt paid off. Looks like except the house 2.5 years and we are debt free. We both have direct deposit and manage total of 4 checking accounts my personal, her personal, one for household ( food and gas ) , one for bills. The bill account has sub accounts set up that we pay into each check then at the end of the month I use those funds to pay every thing online. The only 3 bills set up on auto pay are electric, propane and trash. I get to control how and when for everything else. We sit down once a quarter and do the budget together so there are no problems.

I just married a woman that has a double major in Math and accounting. !! LOL Both of us have been on direct deposit for over 20 years. Oh did I mention she has worked 2 jobs for 20 years? Retired from teaching math at the high school when she was 50, and now teaches full time at the college here. Been there 11 years now Half the pay as High school but NONE of the head aches. College doubles her contribution to a 403 B . That's why folks teach there until theyre 80 !! She puts in 500 each month and college adds 1,000 . Teaches from home because of covid via zoom. She has to go to her office 2 days a week. Was going to retire in 2020 but why ? She's Home and free ins and retirement bonus . Plus who would want to be home everyday with me!!

I've struggled with having a budget still not where some of you are. I set down one day with a calendar and marked of every pay period and then filled in the dates of all regular bills. This way I can see what has to come out of each paycheck and what is coming up next pay period.

Jbyrd i married a banker that didn't work, she doesn't do money well. Lol so the broke cowboy does the budget.

Best advice i ever got was pay yourself 10% off the top then save for anything else you want. I hate money and bills stresses me out to no end, ptsd left over from my x she'd spend 2x more then she made and left us way short and hurting money wise. I see how my kids deal with money and can see her at times in a couple and the complete opposite in others. The x still doesn't have a pot or a window, took me a lot of years to get past it but still have to work at it at times.

Not a great answer. A better job means nothing without a budget....lots of white collar workers out there that are flat broke cause they cant handle money. If you spend more than you take in, you are still broke.

I hate automatic withdrawals from bank accounts. Can't count how many times a company decided to withdrawal early or late.
I have my truck insurance on auto withdrawal on a credit card and that's all I mainly use that card for.

Have not received a salary or retirement check since the mid 1980s. All direct deposit. We do have about a dozen items or regular bills we have on auto withdrawal and have for many years. We run those through our money market account.
As to plans and managing finances there are many paths to get to where one needs or wants to be. How one should setup a plan I feel depends a lot on who you are or how you choose to live.
Some people are savers, some are earners, some are risk takers , some seek safe investments, some not.
Does not work to try to set up a plan or management style that does not fit your natural tendencies, you just won't follow it or find all sorts of excuses as to why not to.
Also investing can take on many forms. Invest in thinks you have knowledge or can manage well. For some that is stocks, some funds, some land, others can be collections etc. For many it may well be several which can diversify risk. Some are very debt averse, some over use debt and some manage debt very well. Having counseled 100s of small business owners (farmers) for 40 some years those that had the most financial security enjoyed their profession, new what items needed the urgent and important attention and managed debt by using it for production assets and land.
Finding work that rewards one's skills and can be done for decades and enjoyed is a huge part of any good plan.

Bryce

I am no expert on it , I am not were I want to be myself but I have learned and we are working on it


Dave Ramsey has a lot of wisdom on the matter .

budgeting is huge

living on less than what you make is huge

eliminating all non mortgage debt and eventually even that

no one ever regrets having cash on hand when a deal comes along

no one ever regrets having emergency money set aside

no one ever regrets having 3 months expenses put away when they loose their job


think about this from a boxers perspective , if you spend your whole bout on your heals , you never get a chance to land a punch not a good one and you loose in the decision even if you stayed on your feet in every round.


todays economy is designed to keep you on your heals . everything about it offers you the opportunity to spend your earnings and then some.

they make it so easy , they hide the true costs , everything is disguised as a small transaction , oh it's only 5 or 10 or 20 you young folks think about Micro transactions in video games this is the pinnacle of oh it's only X and next thing you know it turns out to be a lot of X that adds up to real month that bought nothing.

when you are constantly on the edge you are trapped , predictable , you can't afford to fight back all the things tyrants and bankers are looking for.

the entertainment economy takes so much money from people , and leaves them with nothing , you watched something , you were entertained for an hour.

a fire, a deck of cards, friends. chill in the back yard

fishing , hunting , trapping don't have to be expensive to be enjoyable.

find what you enjoy and not what a entertainment economy tells you you need.