You're not the only one, GS! I still have an anxiety-phobic-jumpy nerve about forgetting to pay a bill... so here are some ways I came up with, combined with hubby's "way of thinking" about how to organize and manage this so that I don't "forget" or get so involved with something else that I'm distracted and don't even think about... paying those bills.
We have a designated spot to sort mail. Fun stuff I want to look at later, gets put in one pile and then moved somewhere else. The mail that needs to be shredded - that I'm not interested in - goes to it's own bin and when the bin gets full, I shred for 5-10 minutes (it's not a big box). That leaves bills. (Of course, I'm still dealing with all of hubby's magazines and stuff he subscribes to...)
Bills get opened the day they come in. I review the bill in full - new charges against last months & last months' payments, etc and on the outside of the envelope it came in, I write the due date. If I'm feeling a little antsy about it, I'll even write the amount of the payment on the outside, too. The bills are all left together, with the next due date on top... in the same place everytime, so that I can see the due dates clearly. They're in a place I walk past, every single day... so I can check to see if anything is coming up that I need to remember to get in the mail. (no, I still haven't felt comfortable paying bills online yet - techie that I am; it's not that I'm fearful of the 'net version... I'm afraid I'll lose track - I'm worried about my ability to stay on top of things!!) So this way - bills don't get shuffled under other paper, forgotten about, and because I'm forced to write a check & put a stamp on the envelope, I KNOW I've paid the bill. It's in my check register, too. (This part isn't always perfect, mind you; I have recorded payments incorrectly... transposed numbers... and even made math errors while using a calculator. Anxiety and money are a volatile combination... but usually with this system, it's not so hard to find the errors.)
The amount of interaction & engagement I have with my money & paying the bills, kind of gives me a sense of emotional control... I'm consciously making decisions and paying attention to what I'm doing and allowing myself to feel good about writing the checks... which leads me to the second part of my rube-goldberg process.
I'm a huge fan of steno pads. They don't take up a lot of space and being well-bound, the pages stay together with minimum care. Pencil, sharpener, good eraser and a reliable calculator make up the rest of my "kit". This is my money-bill management and planning kit. (And yes, I'm STILL doing all this despite the change in circumstances... it's how my brain is able to turn the swirl of numbers into a comfort-zone of order) Steno pads are divided vertically into 2 columns, which is all I need to organize balances... payments... and to plan out pay-offs... and most importantly for me, to divide the bills by due date into those due on/before the 15th and those due after. Typically, if I have a credit card balance, I will always pay the same amount on it, every month unless I'm paying the whole amount. I can estimate or average the monthly payment for other bills that vary each month - like electricity or whatever; or even review the old bills to see what the highest monthly payment was to create a "master list" of bills & amounts that get paid in the first and second half of the month. Income usually doesn't change month to month, so it can simply be totalled and listed at the top of the master list.
Then, each month... as bills come in and I pay them, I create a new sheet that mimics the master sheet - 1st & second half of the month) indicating just the bill and the amount paid. When I write the check, I put a check mark next to the name of the bill. If I mess this system up, it's easy to go back to the check register and doublecheck... or if I've recorded an amount wrong there - to the chkg acccount statement to verify how much I paid to whom. I keep all these until the steno book gets full (and then start a new one).
These steno books provide a valuable record for me - to see exactly where money is going, yes. But also to help reassure myself that I CAN deal with it in a responsible fashion... that I HAVE done so in the past... so that slowly but surely, I'm able to relax more about money and trust myself and have some confidence in my ability to "take care of things" well. Having more money to manage doesn't automatically make these kinds of things go away... I find I still have to work at the emotional/psychological side of this, more than I think I "should"... and now that the amounts are bigger, I'm still doing it all myself so that I can sleep well at night. Hubby has his own version, using Quicken and his own custom spreadsheets... and I can manage that version as well. But the tactile, eye-hand-brain, connection of paper & pencil is absolutely required for my own peace of mind... that's its real value to me.
Maybe there's something in our system that you'll find helpful. I know there's lots of different ways of doing this... as many as there are people, probably! I'm not even sure where all this anxiety (it's shame-based, too) comes from for me. Yes, there was a time when bill collectors hounded me, I was regularly late on my rent, etc. and I had to fight for child support income. The origin of this is even more toxic than that, though. My fear/anxiety is that I'll be having so much FUN** or be so preoccupied doing something interesting... that I won't "remember" to pay my bills. To my knowledge - that's never happened to me - even though I did have to arrange for smaller payments at one time or another and I learned about interest rates and late-fees and prime rate-based APRs the hard way!
** Yeah, right - like I allow myself to have so much fun! That's still an uphill struggle for me and I'm continually coming up with excuses to "not do" things that do sound like fun... and fully prevent other people from engaging with me this way, too.
