Win Free Money By Paying Your Bills
If you are trying to save money, start by paying your bills on time. You can cut coupons, rummage through dumpsters, and buy dented cans of beans to save $35 only to have those savings gobbled up by a credit card late-fee.
Don’t have enough money to pay all your bills? Pay the credit cards first. Consider this:
If you had 5 hungry mobsters standing outside your house waiting for money but only 4 pieces of lasagne, you’d feed the 4 meanest-looking ones first, right? Think of your utility company as the 5th jolly mobster who doesn’t mind waiting a few days to eat.
Avoiding late fees, increased interest rates, and return-to-service fees is just like winning free money! A few simple steps will get you on track to maximizing your winnings:
- Take a calendar, a marker, and a list of all your bills and when they are due. Write them out according to the week they are due with a grand total.
- Determine the actual amount of your income and when it is available to pay bills. If you are paid weekly, you have the easiest task. If you are paid bi-weekly, mark off your paydays on the calendar with a grand total next to each bi-weekly period.
- Now you should have totals next to each week on your calendar. Some weeks will obviously be “safe weeks” when your income is significantly greater than your expenses. It’s important to compare these to the “lasagne weeks” when you’ll need to decide which mobster to feed first.
Knowing ahead of time which weeks you’ll fall short in paying your bills is key to your plan. Saving money from the “safe weeks” will allow you to minimize the number of times per year you have too cook for the mobsters.
With some forethought, a bit of practice, and the luck that follows everyone who works hard to make good things happen, you’ll soon be maximizing your “winnings.”
Tags: basic budgeting | paying bills on time | Saving Money | scheduling bill payments
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 4:34 am and is filed under Bills & Bill Paying. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
