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Stress-Free Bill-Paying
If you always have enough money in your bank account, then bill-paying is easy and relatively painless. How do you get to that point where you are no longer living paycheck to paycheck? It is not enough to simply budget. One must commit to the idea of living within your income, vowing to put money aside each month for the times when you really need it. To find out how much you need in order to cover your bills and expenses each month, you first need to figure out how much you spend in a year for each general expense.
For example, Auto Expenses (see below) should include car payments, insurance, taxes/registration, gasoline, and repairs. If you spend $800 per month on these things, you can multiply that number by 12 to find out about how much you spend in a year.
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Say your bank account receives a paycheck every other Friday. This means that you can expect to have 26 pay periods in one year. If you are paid twice monthly, you will have 24 pay periods. Divide the yearly total of each expense by the number of pay periods and you will get the amount that should be set aside each and every pay period. So, if in the example above, you put $369 into a fund for Auto Expenses each time you get paid, that money will be there when the necessary expenses pop up. It won't matter that all of your payments AND insurance are due in one pay period. The money you need will be collecting in your fund until you need it most. The same goes for student loans, house payments, home improvements, medical expenses, utilities (especially electric, gas, and oil), and travel. According the example above, if you put just $46 away each pay period, after a year you will have $1200 for your family to travel. For more information on how this system works, you'll find more details and examples here.
Click on image for a blank, printable version ListPlanIt's Expenses Worksheet provides a place for you to work out the necessary expenses of a household and to figure out how much should be designated each pay period to various funds. At ListPlanIt.com, you can find hundreds of lists and planning pages including Financial Planning pages to help you put your finances in order including bill schedules, a checking account register, and many pages for tracking your family's expenses through various funds. Or ListPlanIt's Finance ePlanner is a downloadable packet of financial planning pages that you can store on your computer, type into, and print as often as you need!
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