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In another post on this site I have written about how important it is for you to have a budget for your monthly expenditure. It is also important that you manage your bill payment schedule. Poor management of when bills need to be paid each month can create cash flow headaches, these are times when you have a bill to pay but no available money to pay it. It is worth creating a bill payment schedule as an Excel document and thinking about how dates on the schedule can be altered to create a better cash flow position for yourself.
Good management of bills will enable you to avoid late payment charges or a reliance on credit cards to get you through to the end of the month.
Bill Payment Schedule
Your Action Plan
Go through all your bills and record on your spreadsheet and make a note of when each bill needs to be paid. When you have finished, you should have a list of regular bills and dates covering accommodation, mobile phone and electricity etc.
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Ask yourself, is there a regular time in the month when you seem to have more bills than cash? It may be that by week three of each month your available cash is particularly low. If this is the case, and you get paid once a month it would make sense to move payment dates from week 3 to closer to the start of the month, i.e. just after pay day.
If you get paid weekly, it could be advantageous to alter payment dates so that all bills are paid just after you receive your weekly wages. Individual circumstances will vary of course, the objective is to avoid having no cash left and still having bills to pay.
Simplicity is the key, it’s fairly easy to forget about a bill and then fall behind or miss a payment completely. Once you have altered payment dates, automate them with direct debits and standing orders so you don’t have to spend time thinking about them each month.
Ensure that you check how competitive all of your suppliers are once a quarter. If you can switch to a more cost effective supplier without being penalised, you should do so.
Do you have a schedule of bill payments? Have you created your own system? Let me know in the comments section below.
If you have enjoyed this post you will also like the following posts:
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Credit Cards: How to Make Balance Transfers Work For You
What’s the Best Strategy for Clearing Debts?
Save up to £300 per year by Changing Broadband Supplier
Investments: Why Saving is Not Enough
How to Stop Emotional Spending
Water Bills: Are you Pouring Money down the Plughole?
How to Stick to Your Budget During Summer: 5 Tips
Does Your Choice of Supermarket Matter?
Save Money by Switching Energy Supplier Every Year
How to Stop Impulse Buying – 10 Ways
Have you Found all of Your Dormant Accounts?
Can you live off a Cash Budget for a Week?
My aim with each blog post is to help you move to a better financial future. I believe that there is not enough financial education in the national curriculum and I intend to share anything helpful that I have learned along the way. I am by no means a financial expert. None of the information on this website constitutes financial advice and is provided as general information only. This is my personal finance blog; my marketing blog is over here and I have been blogging there since 2010. I hope you have found this information useful. Thank you for reading.
Best regards,
Mike
