REVIEW YOUR STATEMENTS – reviewing your monthly statement to make sure the bill payment was received on time and you did not incur any late fess. Also want to make sure the payment date you established for the payment to go out provides enough time so it is processed on time. Many times we just pay the bill since it automated without reviewing the bill. After its paid its to late to dispute but you can always try.

REVIEW PAYMENT WAS MADE – Check to see if the payment is sent out or if your credit cards was charged on the day that you designated. To do this set up an alert or set a date in your calendar to view if payment was done. One way to make it simple is to try to set all payments to be sent and charged to credit card on the same day or within a few days of each other if possible. This way you will only have to check once per month to make sure all payments were made.

CORRECT AMOUNT CHARGED – Not only do you want to make sure the payment was sent or charged, you also want to make sure the correct amount was paid. You would hate to underpay your bill and be charged interest or possible late fees.

Automation is key to simplifying your personal finances but supervision is even more important. So establish a checks and balances system to make sure all of your bills are paid as you have set up. This will save you time and give you a peace of mind knowing that your bills are paid and you only have to check to see that they were done once a month.

Use bill pay service – Sign up for one of the many bill pay services now available to help you with your bill paying.  By using bill pay service, you will eliminate the need to sit down with your check book and write out those monthly checks to pay bills.  By using bill pay service you can almost eliminate your check book for good.  Check with your current bank first to see what bill pay service they offer you as an existing customer.

Set up alerts and reminders – Begin using a reminder services or set up your own personal reminder service with an online calendar such as Google calendar.  Use the calendar to remind you when the bill will be due or remind you to make sure the bill payment service your using has paid the bills you have set up.  Using reminders and alerts, you eliminate the chance of you forgetting to make payment.  Setting these alerts up properly there will be no more excuses for those late payments.

Use credit card – Have your bills charge directly to your credit card.  By using credit card you will not have to remember to pay multiple bills.  You will only have to remember to pay one bill which makes it easy.   You also will not have to worry about your payment being delayed in the mail because payment will be charged to your credit card.

Use auto debit -If your not comfortable using your credit card to pay your bills, consider having your bills auto debited from your bank account.  Using auto debit as your method of paying bills, will eliminate the need to write checks as well as stress worrying if payment will arrive on time.

Eliminate your paper statements – Now that you have eliminated the need to write checks to pay your bills by using credit cards, bill pay service, or auto debiting your bank account your still spending time every month filing away those paper statements.  If this is the case, you can eliminate the paper statements by signing up for paperless statements.  Instead of receiving your monthly statments by snail mail, you will receive your statements by email.  This will hopefully eliminate the need for you to spend time manually filing away those paper statements.  If you want to keep copies of your statement set up files on your computer to maintain these statements.

By implementing these simple tips, you can save yourself valuable time each month.  Instead of paying bills you can spend those extra hours doing something you enjoy.  Also doing this will make your life less stressful since you are not worrying if a bill was paid or rushing to post office to make sure your payment will arrive on time.  So take action by implementing one of these five tips so you begin to live a simplified financial lifestyle as well as save time, money and have less stress.

Which of these five tips have you implemented to simplify your bill paying process?