How to Organize Bills & Papers In a Way to Never Miss Another Deadline!

Choosing the right supplies and the right location is essential. Think this through carefully. Answer this: What area of your house do you spend the most time in? Do you have a favorite spot? Perhaps it’s the end seat on your couch. Perhaps you sit at your computer every day. Maybe it’s the kitchen! You will be using an area that you are at the MOST daily. The next requirement is to gather the supplies. A file cabinet is not a requirement, but a good place to start. If you prefer something portable, you can buy plastic portable file boxes. I suggest the largest (deepest) one you can find.

Next you will need around 22 hanging file folders. Twelve will be for the different months, and ten for dates of the month. If you want to be real creative, you can use a couple different colors; one color for months and another for the dates. The hanging file folders come with plastic tabs and papers to label. There are a few ways to label these. If you have a computer and office software (like Microsoft Word), you can follow the instructions on the package and print on the computer. Another way is to use a label maker and print out the labels and stick on the paper inserts that go inside plastic tabs. A typewriter can be used if you own one. The quickest and easiest way is to simply hand write the labels out. Just write with a bold pen or marker. To get started, you will create tabs for the different months. You can abbreviate or spell whole month out. Create one for each month; January through December. Next you will create ten more labels. These will be dates in the month. I do not suggest creating one for each date of the month since you would have up to 31 folders for this alone. Create labels like this: 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-15, 16-18, 19-21, 22-24, 25-27, 28-31. You should have a total of ten for this piece. Place labels into the plastic tabs and insert into the hanging files. I would space them out so that you have January to the far left. February would be placed in the inserts just to the right of January. Continue putting all tabs together.

Place the numbers files into the front of the file box (in order of course). Next place the monthly files behind the numbered files in order. Now go grab some of those bills or papers you need to follow up on. This is a system for FOLLOWING up on bills due, events coming up or any other type of paper that you want or NEED to look at again in the future. These often end up stacked, misplaced, tossed or even destroyed by the cup of milk your child spilled on it. There may be things you pay once a year and forget to plan for till the bill shows up in the mail. A good example of this would be your DMV registration or perhaps your annual AAA membership, or your Costco renewal fee. So let’s start with that car registration. Mine is due every November. If you do not currently have a bill in hand that is due, go take a look at the registration expiration date on your registration card in the car. Since mine is due in November, I will want a reminder a month or two before it’s due. Take a plain piece of paper for the time being, and write down “Car Registration”. If you have not bought a new car recently, you know that your registration will be a bit lower than the prior year generally. To be safe, plan to pay the amount you paid the prior year. Write this amount on the paper, along with the expiration date. If it’s due in November, file it two months before this date in September. When the actual bill comes, make a copy of it and place it in September for the following year. You can always just file the bill for next year as a reminder after you have paid it instead of making a copy. Some people like to file all paid bills somewhere else. This is simply a rotating and on-going follow-up system. If you have your car payment coming up on the 15th, then you will want to have a reminder or bill copy filed BEFORE the due date. You will want this to be on a date you plan to mail the payment on or by. I would probably file this one week prior to the due date. At this time you are using the dated files. Each day you will check the current date, and perhaps the next date to see what needs to be done tomorrow. Around the end of each month, you will want to pull all of the next month’s reminders to see if you can move them from the monthly file INTO the dated files for the upcoming weeks. File back anything you will want to remember the next year during that month. I highly recommend going through all the dates at least weekly to make sure you didn’t miss something. If you h

Each time you have completed paying a bill or task; decide whether or not you will need to repeat this next month, in 6 months or next year. If so, either file the completed copy as a reminder for the future month you need to start planning for it (not necessarily when it’s due as you’ll want to allow yourself some time to prepare for it) or make a copy and file the original elsewhere. Often times will file the completed copy for follow-up until the next original bill shows up in the mail. I then replace the old copy with the new, and file the old or shred it. Rebates are no exception to this system. I make it good practice to always submit my rebates to companies as soon as I make the purchase. If it says I will receive my rebate in 6-8 weeks, I will file a copy of what I submitted to the in the next month’s follow-up. If it has not come yet, I may move it into my weekly follow-up (dates) and move it out daily until it has arrived. If it’s really late, I give them a call.

This is an additional and optional step. I like to break my follow-up system even more than I have explained above. I like to have monthly folders, dated folders for parts of the month and weekly folders by day of week. If you want to make it a bit more detailed, you will need 5-7 more hanging file folders. These will be labeled: Mon., Tues., Wed., Thurs., Fri., Sat/Sun. I use this system at work so I have left out Sat/Sun. I would group these two days together if you choose to add the weekend, but it’s truly up to you. The system can be used successfully as described above, skipping this step if you choose to do so. The deeper the file cabinet drawer or box, the easier it is to include this step.

Bonus Step: Create ONE more hanging file to put in back of everything labeled “Taxes”. Throughout the year, file copies of anything needed to file your future taxes into this one folder. It will make life much easier at tax time. (e.g: taxable interest showing on mortgage statements that you can write off annually, copies of DMV registration paid on car, 1099’s, etc)

If you have any questions at all, email me at clickingforcash@gmail.com.