Bill Paying Routine

Right now everyone is watching how he/she spends. Developing a bill paying routine will prevent late payment fees and higher interest rates.

Many people enjoy the convenience of paying bills online and using personal financial software that reminds them about upcoming bills.

Some people, even technology users, prefer to pay bills the old fashioned way, by writing checks. Here is an option for those people.

1. Using a monthly calendar, highlight the paydays.

2. Gather the due dates for all bills, quarterly and yearly as well as monthly bills. On the day a bill needs to by paid, taking into account delivery time for mailed payments, write the payee and approximate amount due.

3. Keep this calendar in a “To Pay” file and as you receive bills, add them to the file.

4. Schedule a specific time, on every payday or within a few days of payday, to attend to financial responsibilities. At this time, take care of all the bills that need to be paid before the next payday. On the calendar, check off bills as they are paid.

Now more than ever, staying on top of your financial situation is important. This method is especially helpful for visual people, because they are able to "see" all their bills at a glance.

Develop A Routine That Works - Changing the Sheets

I’ve written before about the importance of organizing based on your lifestyle and what works for you. Here is a prime example.

Last week I was talking to my neighbor about our routines for changing the bedding. On Monday, I strip two beds, launder the sheets and remake the beds with the same sheets. On Wednesday, I strip the other two beds and do the same. This method works for me because I hate to fold the sheets. The only time I fold sheets is when the season changes and I switch the type of sheets on the beds.

My neighbor prefers to change all the bedding in one day. All the beds get fresh sheets and she tosses the dirty ones in the laundry room until a few days later, when she washes, dries, folds the sheets, and puts them away until next week.

My point: a major component of keeping your home and life organized is developing a routine that fits your personality and style. Gather organizing ideas from others and use the ones that work for you. So, what is your routine for changing bedding?

Getting the Laundry Done

Traditionally, best practice for getting the laundry done has been to assign a laundry day, one day designated exclusively to doing load after load of laundry. For today’s typically family that often would mean spending one weekend day taking care of laundry. Weekend time is so valuable! Who wants to spend it doing laundry?

Here is another option: Do a load or two of laundry each day. In the morning, before leaving for work, throw a load in. When you get home, put that load in the dryer and start a second load. By the end of the evening, two loads are done.

Getting children involved: have each child take their full laundry basket to the laundry room. If each child has enough clothing for a dark and a light colored load, one child’s laundry can be done in an evening and putting the clothes away is a snap, since all the clothing washed goes to one room. (Side note: use a laundry bag for each child’s socks to make sorting the socks go faster and prevent socks from disappearing inside sweaters.)

The traditional suggestion has been to have your children collect their clean clothing from the laundry room. The difficulty is, if the child doesn’t get their laundry, the laundry room gets cluttered. Another option is to put the clean clothing in a laundry basket and put it back in the child’s room for him/her to put away.

Of course, as children get old enough to do their own laundry, teaching them and allowing them to take care of their clothes is the most efficient way to take care of the laundry.