How to Keep Track of Household Finances

Managing bill payments and household finances can be a hassle if you’re not the most organized person. With the number of monthly bills that the average American household has, it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of due dates, payments, addresses, and account numbers. Sometimes we incur late payment fees that could have been avoided if we'd kept better records and organized a simple routine to manage our bills and bank accounts. The following steps will help you organize your monthly bills and make keeping track of household finances easier.

Things You'll Need

• Household finance organizer
• Copy of your bills

Instructions

Keep Track of Household Finances

1. Purchase a home finance organizer. You can pick one up for under $10 at most department or office supply stores. A home finance organizer is a book that has pockets on the inside that you can use to manage and keep all of your bills in one place. If you have more than 12 monthly bills, you’ll need to purchase a second organizer.

2. Gather your monthly bills. If you pay your bills on-line and do not receive a paper bill, or if you have bills that are automatically deducted from your checking account, have account numbers, amounts due, due dates, and payment addresses available for them. Accurate information is crucial to keeping track of your household finances so double check all of your information--don’t rely on your memory.

3. Organize your bills. You may want to organize them by order of importance, by their due dates, or alphabetically.

4. Place a copy of each bill in its appropriate sleeve.

5. Write the debtor’s name, your account number, and the day of the month the bill is due on the front of the pocket. If you normally mail a check, write the debtor’s mailing address beneath the name. If you pay the bill on-line, write the web address where you pay the bill, your log-in name, and password beneath the debtor’s name.

6. Repeat Step 4 for all of your monthly bills. If you find that you have pockets left over, reserve them for payments that are due annually or semi-annually, such as insurance premiums and car registrations or reserve them for tax receipts when you make a charitable donation.

7. Check bill due dates against the dates on which you are paid. You’ll want to devise a plan that will ensure that all of your bills are paid before they’re due. For instance, if you are paid on the first and fifteenth of every month, you’ll probably pay your bills around those dates. Bills that are due around the first of the month will be paid with the check you receive on the fifteenth and bills that are due around the middle of the month will be paid when you get your first check of the month. Paying bills this way helps to keep them organized and ensures that your bill payments are never late.

8. Keep track. Each time you make a payment, write down the date that you paid the bill, the check number or confirmation number you received when you paid the bill on-line and the amount paid in the spaces provided on the front of each pocket.

9. Record the amounts paid in your checkbook. Be sure to record all purchases in your checkbook register and balance your checkbook as often as possible. Doing this will ensure that you always know your available bank account balance and where your money has gone.

Tips & Warnings

• When adding purchases in your checkbook, round up to the nearest dollar amount. In a year’s time, you’ll have a surplus in your checking account that can be rolled over into a savings account. Just rounding up to the nearest dollar over a one year period can give you a $400 to $500 surplus that you can use toward emergency repairs or a weekend getaway.

• Be sure to write down confirmation numbers. A confirmation number is your proof that you've paid a bill.

• Keep your household organizer in a locked safe.