Pam:

For me sorting out bills and my son's school paperwork was always used to end up in mess, if I leave it for later time, The only thing works for me, is as soon as mail comes out, I sort it out, and if bills need to be paid, I pay them right away, file them right away so hopefully there is no error, and as a child and adult we have always lived on budget, and still save.

Have you looked at online banking that way you know whether you have money in bank b4 drawing check

Asha

Pam,

I am a believer in Quicken. I don't enter checks into my check book. I enter them direct into Quicken. It does the addition and subtraction for me. I can also access my account online which means if I get confused I can easily check the account to see what is in it. I do pay some things online. It is also possible to setup to auto pay some bills. For example, I have a credit card which is a backup card. I hardly ever use it. After forgetting to pay it once, I set up with the credit card people to automatically deduct any amount due. As I said I hardly ever use the card, so it is never a big amount.

Look into what you can do to make your life easier. Technology is great

Pam,

I agree with Asha and Lin about paying on line if it agrees with you. It took me a year to feel safe by doing it on line, now thats all I do, plus some of them send you reminders your bill is due. I printed out a "bill list" put it in plastic, use a marker to indicate it's been paid for the month. All my paychecks go direct deposit, easier on me.

It may not be the way to go for everybody but I keep better balances.

I too have bank on line, so I can check my balance, I have duplicate checks, but sometimes dont write hard enough and the carbon is too light to read. I also have set up some bills to be paid monthly from my checking account. I go to a credit union, which has lower fees, free checks, free on line bill pay. also you can get a back up credit so if you over draw you are covered and then pay it back..with low interest.

The tellers are friendly and get to know you by name. also my car loan i got a lower interest rate.

when i messed up once, i went in and the bank manager reversed serval over draft fees when i explained what happened. the direct deposit went to the wrong bank...

Bonnie