1. KEEP YOUR PENDING BILLS TOGETHER, IN ONE DESIGNATED AREA.

As soon as your mail arrives, or at your designated
mail sorting time, sort through the mail, separating your
pending bills from all of your other mail. When done
sorting, immediately place your pending bills in an
envelope, pocket folder or Pending Bills basket.

Whatever you do, don't put your utility bill in
one folder, your car insurance bill in another folder and
your membership dues bill in another. All pending bills
should be together in an envelope, pocket folder or basket
so they can be paid without having to search 10 different
places to find them.

My husband and I use a Bill Paying Pocket Folder Book which
has about 20 Pocket Folders inside. All of our Pending
Bills go together in the very first pocket folder. All
Paid Invoices/Receipts then get filed in the individual
categorized pocket folders that follow. This system works
like a dream for us.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, you don't have to
drop everything you're doing when you get a bill in the
mail to pay it immediately. Designate 2 to 4 days per
month and do all of your bill paying on those days.

My husband and I pay our bills on the 8th and 22nd of each
month. You may do the same, or perhaps you might want to
pay any pending bills one day per week, such as, every
Friday.

In order to speed up your bill
paying efforts, always pay your bills in one place, whether
that place be your desk, the kitchen table, etc. Wherever
it is, this area should be equipped with your bills,
checkbook, envelopes, stamps, pens, pencils, a calculator,
tape, a stapler and return address labels. If you don't
have drawers to keep your supplies in, get yourself a small
plastic box, or even a shoe box, and keep everything
inside.

As soon as you pay each bill, immediately record the payment in your check
register or computer software register. Don't wait until
later because if you do, there's a good chance you will
forget. And once you forget, you'll have to waste time and
money later dealing with overdrawn account fees.

Once you pay your bills, mark your copy or section of the invoice with the
Date Paid, Check Number and Amount Paid. Then, file each
into the appropriate pocket of your Bill Paying Folder--
with one pocket for each; i.e. Utilities, Insurance,
MasterCard, Visa, etc.) or into categorized folders in
your filing cabinet.

Every month you will receive checking account
statement(s), and possibly cancelled checks, from your
bank. Immediately place them in a folder until your
designated monthly date rolls around to reconcile your
checking account. Then, keep your statements and cancelled
checks all together in a folder for the year. You may need
to retrieve them later for your accountant when tax season
rolls around.

By the way, any bank statements and/or cancelled checks
more than a year old can be stored away in a different
area than your current files. You may also consider
checking with your accountant to determine how long he or
she suggests you need to keep this information.

The more credit cards you have, the more difficult it is going to be to keep them
organized, and the longer it's going to take you to pay
your bills. Whenever possible, condense your many credit
cards into 2 or 3 credit cards, and get rid of the rest.

For recurring bills, such as mortgage, rent or loan
payments, you'll save a lot of time preparing a bunch of
envelopes for each beforehand. For example, let's say you
have to pay the rent each month. Make a year's worth of
envelopes out with your landlord's name and mailing
address, your return address and a stamp. This way,
everything will be all set to go each month. You just
write out a check, place it in the prepared envelope and
mail.

If you're paying your bills manually, you may
consider purchasing inexpensive, money management software.
My husband and I use Quicken. It's a breeze to set up and
reduces the time it takes us to pay our bills by more than
50%. Plus, it's a great time saver at tax time because it
will automatically organize all of your income and expenses,
with a print-out, ready for your accountant.