It’s somehow been awhile since I’ve hosted a giveaway on the blog, so today I’ll be giving away two, count ’em two financial literacy books. And because I’m a big cheapo, they’re both from Multnomah County’s Title Wave bookstore which sells used library books.
- The first book is Liz Weston’s Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and get What You Want Out of Life.
- The second book is Regina Leed’s One Year to an Organized Financial Life: From Your Bills to Your Bank Account, Your Home to Your Retirement, the Week-by-Week Guide to Achieving Financial Peace of Mind.
Both books are chock full of great financial tips, and who among us could not benefit from a little financial organizational inspiration? (I think I’ll reread these books while I wait to declare a winner!)
To enter this giveaway write something in the comments section about how you organize (or don’t organize) your finances. I will randomly choose a winner for both books on Monday, March 12th at 9 P.M. Pacific time. U.S. residents only, one entry per person.
Here, I’ll start it out:
I automate as many of my bills as possible. This way I never have to worry whether the bills are being paid on time.
Now your turn. What do you do?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 97 comments… read them below or add one }
I keep all of my receipts and record my spending in QuickBooks. This makes doing my taxes much easier at the end of the year and gives me a realistic picture of how to budget.
I have always worked within a tight budget. I also have a credit card with a high interest rate – It may sound silly, but this stops me from buying anything that I can’t pay off within a month because I don’t want to pay the interest. I also get cash back from the card so it works out great.
Ann
I’m not that organized – I dread tax season. I use an older version of quicken and balance my accounts every week but I have organizational issues.
Organizing my finances is definitely a work in progress for me, but the one thing I try to do is pay a bill as soon as I receive it. So that money is gone and I don’t risk spending it on something frivolous.
The biggest thing I’ve done this year to simplify finances is to get rid of my bank account and share the same credit union account with my husband. We’ve been married for 3+ years now, but only recently made the jump to sharing the same bank account. It’s been so helpful!
I am a spreadsheet nerd. My finances are all broken down on Excel spreadsheets galore! I also have a calendar posted in the kitchen with all the due dates for my bills. I check it daily to make sure things get paid in plenty of time.
I track my spending–every penny is accounted for, whether I’m using cash, a check (to pay bills only), or my credit card (the only thing I’m charging now is gas–I’m getting 5% cash back from my credit card company through March. I also put car repairs on my credit card this month but will pay the bill off in full).
Honestly, when I was single a lot of things were all rolled together – rent & utilities, things were pretty bare bones so there wasn’t much to keep straight. Then when I met my husband and we got together, I spent a really long time trying to come up with a system when we combined accounts and a house. However, unfortunately things with my husband and I didn’t work out for a variety of reasons (a lot of them financial) and he’s recently moved out and we’re in the process of getting a divorce. And now that I’m on my own but with a lot more on my plate (house, car, utilities, insurance – all the adult trappings) I could really use some help sorting it all out.
What a fun giveaway!
My husband does our finances, but to be honest he’s kind of slap dash about it, and I’ve been thinking about taking over the responsibility for awhile. Maybe reading one of these books would give me the push in the right direction. Even if I don’t win, there’s always the library. Thanks for the inspiration! 😉
My husband and I feel like we’ve gotten into a trap of spending everything we earn. We don’t have CC debt as we pay in full each month, but now view the looming CC bill as debt… Buh-bye credit card!
Last week I bought the HomeBudget App for my iPad and I love it! (Try the Lite version before buying it.) I’m still learning how it works, but I love how it compares our budget to our expenses and I can see exactly where we go out of budget each month.
Fiance and I have weekly meetings to discuss what we’re spending money on this week and divvy up cash from the cash box. He’s a paramedic and I have two jobs so it’s a challenge to stay on the same page. We both grab a laptop and a snack and go for it. And it’s the perfect time to catch each other up on YouTube videos of baby animals.
This might not be a good method for everyone, but I organize my finances by paying for almost everything with my (one) credit card. It’s then really easy for me to track where all my money goes because every transaction shows up online and I can review them whenever I want (typically 1/week). It’s also a good budgeting tool for me – as I approach a given amount in any month, I know I had better stop spending or I won’t be able to afford to pay my credit card bill.
I also always, *always,* pay off my entire balance every month. I have a high interest rate card like Ann – no way can I afford to pay interest!
This method also helps me because I find it hard to keep cash on hand. This way, I only pay with cash if I can’t pay with a credit card, so I can stretch the cash from each trip to the ATM farther. (I live in the boonies, so getting to an ATM from my bank is a 50 mile drive. I can go to closer ATMs, of course, but the cheapest close one charges $2.00 per transaction!)
Same here Betsyohs…everything onto our one credit card…and paid off in full every month! Works for us…but I am not really a shopper…so we are safe 🙂
Same here. One card for EVERYTHING. It keeps things simple, and we can see with one statement where all of our money was spent. Unless we go somewhere or buy something out of the norm, we have almost the same amount due each month.
I work on my computer all day so my Google calendar keeps my personal and business appointments very visible. I have set monthly alarms that remind me to pay my credit card bills and to bill my clients.
My husband and I try to follow Dave Ramsey and use his zero balanced budget. He is a free spirit and I am a Nerd. Recently we have started an actual monthly budget in excel, as opposed to, you know, the old if we have checks we must have money approach. LOL! It’s not that bad, but you get the idea…marriage and money are ever the challenge.
I have an excell spreadsheet that keeps a running total for all the spending categories I have. New “deposits” are made on the first of the month and when I spend from that category I subtract that amount. I recalculate how much each category gets about twice a year.
The hubs and I have a set budget for groceries, gas, household items, pets, etc. each month. We each use the same credit card for budget items, then email the charges back and forth to each other, keeping a running total. When we reach the limit, we STOP. Neither of us wants to be the one to go over. As the cut-off comes closer we become aware of things like gas/groceries and plan for those charges, while making other (less necessary) charges wait until the next billing cycle.
I use online bill pay which makes tracking bills and payments 100x’s easier for me.
For expenses that don’t come as monthly bills such as food, entertainment. I take cash and put it in an envelope marked for each of my typical expense categories. It’s super low-tech, but works great for me. Plus I find it a lot harder to part with an actual paper dollar than to flip out my debit card so I tend to spend less. The visual clue of only a few dollars left in the envelope is a big motivator to make more frugal decisions too!
I use only one credit card and avoid store /multiple commercial cards. I picked the one I currently use as it offers cash rewards
( my preference :-)It’s one bill instead of many and I pay it online.
I love, love, love, love, love PearBudget.com. It is simple, easy, intuitive, and doesn’t lock you into weird categories like Mint or Quicken. It also doesn’t link to your bank account information, which is a plus for me. It is basically an online version of the envelope system (dave ramsey fans, say WOOT!). And can I just say how much I love the way it tracks for irregular expenses. It is a beautiful thing. For a big-ol-cheapo like me to be willing to pay $4.95/month for this service…it HAS to be good. My husband and I always have grand Excel intentions, but never got around to it.
I record all my bill payments in a spreadsheet so I can see at a glance what’s due and what’s been paid. I also make sure to mark whether it’s cleared the bank or not!
Like a few others, I have an excel sheet. But I have it broken out into 12 monthly tabs and each month broken down with each paycheck. Every bill is listed there. And there are months when the bills go into the red and I HATE THAT! Working on it though!!!
We do the cash system. Keeps our spending in check (most of the time)!
I have Bill Pay thru my credit union, so I use that to pay all my bills. When I receive a confirmation of payment from the payee via e-mail, I save it in a folder on my portable hard drive for the appropriate company and year. These can be deleted after 1 year unless required for taxes. (mine are not). We also went completely paperless, and any billing reminders are sent to us via e-mail. My filing went from a 4 drawer unit down to one.
I am trying to organize my finances in a way that I can understand and follow better. When my husband was doing the finances, he had all sorts of complicated spreadsheets and such, and I really just wanted to go back to a simple cash book and a check book. I know that isn’t possible any longer, so finding somewhere in the middle is my ultimate goal!
Ooooh, I love having organized finances. I keep a zero-based budget (every dollar that comes in gets budgeted) using the goofily-named but fabulous You Need A Budget software.
My favorite part about my budget is how easy it is to keep track of monthly savings for irregular expenses like car repairs, gifts, and trips – it smooths out the bumps. I also find it really satisfying to know exactly how much I can stash away toward my long-term savings goal at the end of each month.
We’ve tried to make a system, but so far haven’t worked anything out… the good thing is that we have enough “padding” to coast through grad school to jobs without worrying too much, but we could be using our resources much more effectively…
We took Dave Ramsey’s PFU 3 years ago and it has been a blessing to us. We paid everything off and now have more money saved and are in better financial shape than we have ever been. Still have a long way to go to reach all our goals but we are well on our way.
I automate my savings so I don’t have any excuses! Long and short term savings and kids college accounts.
We pay our bills as they come in, so we know that they get paid.
I pay most bills online and use a debit card for all my day to day spending. When figuring my checkbook, I round purchases up to the next dime (if something costs $5.62, I subtract $5.70). It offers a little savings each time I write a check but does it in a pain-free way.
I’ve been trying to use an envelope system for budgeting, but it has not been very successful so far.
My husband and I track every penny we spend. That might sound like we’re complicating things, but it makes it so much easier! He built an excel spreadsheet that also acts as a checking register and budget tracker. We know at a glance what our net worth is, when a bill was paid, and the actual balance of all of our accounts. It even uses our gas purchases to track the mpg we get on our car!
i have to reccommend “your money or your life” by joe dominguez and vicki robbin. i never did the charts they suggested–too ocd for me, but they taught me to think of money in a fundamentally new way.
just one example: i lived in santa rosa at the time and commuted to san francisco to work as a nurse, as it paid so much better. using all the costs of the longer commute–my time, gas, car maintenance/depreciation, uniforms instead of hospital supplied scrubs, etc–i learned that i wasn’t making nearly as much as i thot. and the commute time was time lost in my life. i took a job near home and did the occasional home care case to make up the small diff.
I keep track of income and expenses via Quicken, do 99.9% of my banking online, electronic funds transfer, auto-deposits, etc. I use a Visa card that gives me $ back on purchases and has no annual fee (and I pay it in full every month, so interest rate is irrelevant). I keep a spreadsheet of our household budget, with each expense broken down. I keep another spreadsheet of our assets and debts, by type (including house, cars, all bank accounts, stock, etc). I have another word document that clearly spells out our various accounts, life insurance policies, contacts, etc – it’s the “go to” document for our grown children upon my or my husband’s death or incapacity.
i use MS Money – its not the best there is, but it can show me a projected view of my account (after all the regular bills) so I know exactly how much is available for things like date nights or thrift store shopping 😉
BTW – I thought you might be interested in this article from MSN yesterday: http://money.msn.com/family-money/article.aspx?post=c20e622f-9f80-4b2d-90fd-164ead94b9b1
Almost everyone I talked to about it guessed around 60K as the “standard of living”. Interesting.
I automate my savings and retirement contributions. I auto-transfer a set amount of money, per pay period, into a joint checking account with the hubby for household expenses and use mint.com to track them. As for my account, I keep a very low-tech index card (who needs a smart phone?) to track my spending between pay periods and then transfer the totals per category into a spreadsheet.
I keep just one credit card for usual purchases and have one for backup in case of an emergency (I.e. plane ticket to go home in case of family health emergency) but don’t touch that one unless it is an actual emergency.
I have started to use You Need a Budget. It is an evelope style budget program. I love it. I am able to plan for long term thing like property taxes by sticking away a small amount every 2 weeks and it keeps track of the amount in that “envelope”
I’ve been using Mint.com for a couple of years now, and it works great for me. I like that I don’t have to enter the data myself, that it directly pulls it from my account. And I like making year-to-year comparisons. I also auto-pay all my monthly bills. For a person who can easily get overwhelmed by paper, these solutions work great for me.
I pay myself first, by putting a set amount into savings every check and then I ignore my savings account. That money is not there to spend on day to day stuff, it is there for financial goals and big needs that come up.
I still have some student debt which I pay extra into by rounding up to the nearest hundred dollars and paying that into one loan at a time. I Round up my mortgage payment as well.
All of this helps me now and later. I have to work with my tight budget but should something unexpected happen I have that savings cushion and that helps me sleep at night a lot better than anything else I would have spent the money on. I also know that by rounding up it adds up to thousands in savings over the course of my loans and brings me closer to my goal of true financial freedom.
Write down EVERTHING I spend to understand where all my money is going in a month, and to see where I can cut back.
I create piles and baskets of papers throughout my house. Unopened bills are usually the most important, therefore sometimes they remain unopened. My system of bill paying is not unlike a game of roulette. You spin the wheel to see where the ball lands; I mail my checks and see which ones get posted first. :(#FAIL
I’m really low tech – I just put all the bills in a basket and pay them on-time. I have used an excel spreadsheet a few times to keep up with how we’re spending and I loved Elizabeth Warren’s book about budgeting “All Your Worth” –
I track my cashflow in an excel spreadsheet. I use just one credit card for the points and pa y it off every month.
I have also automated almost all my bills. I also use mint.com to manage my budget and keep track of where all my hard earned money is going!
I use a written allocated spending plan each month, deciding ahead of time where all of our money will be going. Expenditures such as groceries, gasoline, and household goods are put into a cash envelope system that I use throughout the month. Finally, I have built into my schedule that I “know the condition of my herds” every Monday, so I look at our finances, pay bills, follow up on insurance issues, etc. at a set time every week, whether I think it is needed or not! Nothing fancy, just good old fashioned pencil, calculator, and a budget written on paper.
I have most of my bills automated too. I am considering doing the utility bills too. Our gas company doesn’t do auto pay but it will let us do what they call the budget plan. They even out the bills throughout the year so they aren’t larger in the winter.
When I had a mortgage and little money, the mortgage was paid first, no matter what. Even food came second. Unlike many women who divorced when I did, women I later met, I did not lose my house to foreclosure. When I had a job that paid monthly, I still paid house, car, and utilities first thing every month. My mortgage is paid off now.
I automate everything that I can, which means I have to write almost zero checks each month when I pay bills. If it’s an irregular payment I set it up through ‘bill pay’ online at my credit union. I tell them who to pay and when. Saves me the check and the postage. When credit card bills come I go ahead and schedule the payment online to be deducted from my account on the due date. I make sure I do this soon after receiving the bill so I’m not late with the payment. Saves a lot of headaches, check-writing and money.
I have tried various methods, but I’m still not very good. Paying as many of my bills online as I can helps more than anything I have found so far. Now if I could just make myself sit down and create that calendar of due dates I would be in even better shape.
I budget carefully. As my check is deposited each month, I take cash out for all budgeted items and the remainder goes into my checking account. When the cash is gone, hopefully the month is over. This builds up a cushion in my checking account to be transferred to savings, or to be used for unplanned or unexpected expenses.
We use an envelope system. This works really well for the kids sports. We have been saving all winter so now that it is time for sign ups we have the cash!
At the moment, I’m in the midst of a major debt-paying-off snowball project, so financial organization has been at the forefront of my mind for a while (shameless plug: blogging about it). The most helpful thing in this process has been a total moratorium on credit card spending. Really. Nothing goes on ’em. At all. Ever.
It’s kind of difficult, but it’s the only way I’m managing (other than by throwing every spare penny at the problem and obsessively tracking spending). Only spending real money really helps encourage conscious shopping. The numbers are more real, and they hurt more.
As far as day-to-day financial organization goes, I automate as many recurring expenses as possible, and do most of my banking online. That makes it easy to compare my spending-tracking pocketmod (pocketmod.com. Super useful!) with whatever charges show up on my debit card throughout the month. Also, like one commenter above, I’m a total spreadsheet nerd and tend to organize everything that can conceivably be crammed into such a format that way. I get such a thrill from playing with my debt snowball spreadsheet and tweaking the numbers to see how much sooner I can get it all paid off!
OK, I know this is totally ridiculous, but I opened 5 separate checking accounts through Wells Fargo and labeled them all something different: Emergency, Travel, Dreams, House/Car and Checking. Every month, we pull out what we want to save and put it in the fund where we need it. Then we only spend from Checking. Works great for us! We’ve saved thousands of dollars for a new car for when our old one dies!
My husband and I have had a budget since we moved in together. We take out our grocery and spending money out in cash and give ourselves equal “just me” money. It works like a charm.
I second and third the idea of automating all of my bills. I would also like to set up automatic reminders of when bills are coming due.
I use excel to create a budget and then the accounts app for iPhone to keep track of spending/bills. It creates reports I can then compare to the budget in excel.
I have two in-coming files (bills, banking) and put things there until the end of the month. Then I go through everything, including the monthly bills to be paid on-line. I’ve found it very helpful to keep a spreadsheet for subscriptions and memberships so that I can recycle the extra offers that come before something is actually going to expire. Plus I can track how much subscriptions increase over time and sometimes eliminate something.
I can’t bring myself to automate everything because I worry that I won’t get paid on time (which happens more often than it should). As soon as I get paid, though, I go through and do all my transfers. I use Mint to track spending, and my husband and I use the same credit card for almost all purchases.
My financial system is horrifically complicated, so perhaps I need to read BOTH of these books. I do email alerts for all my bills, even the automated ones, as a fail safe measure to ensure I don’t forget a payment.
to organize my debt I am using the Dave Ramsey Snowball system. It has been the only system that has stuck for me!!!
I am NOT good about organizing my finances (which is probably why we just spend, spend, spend!). I have a hot-pink folder that all bills go into, but that’s about where my organization ends. I need help with it – this book would be a blessing!
I significantly reduced the number of credit cards I use/ carry. I pay my balances off monthly which sometimes requires some juggling. Ridiculous as it may sound, I/we use 3 financial institutions: credit union, small local bank and a regional large conventional bank (my bank accounts from before we were married 23 years ago – I am too lazy to change and enjoy on some level being a established customer). Each account has a different purpose. Since we married in our 30’s, we found having a “joint account” for household expenses ( to which we both contribute a set amount each month) and maintaining our own personal accounts and credit cards worked best. When we have an unexpected large expense, we talk a out how to fund it and then we both chip in. My husband and I have different spending philosophies…..I enjoy shopping/ thrifting (I love the thrill of the chase and recycling/ refreshing my possessions) and he hates shopping but loves to give generously occasionally to causes he supports. Having some autonomy with our personal money works best for us. I also save automatically through payroll deduction for retirement and college 529 plans. That really helps, otherwise I am sure the money would be gone before I got around to moving it.
Since my husband lost his job our financing is just, whew, thank god we can pay the bills! We could really use the advice in these books.
Three things: on-line banking (with bills staggered for the 2x monthly paycheck), make use of the local thrift stores (both for shopping and donating for the tax write-off) and always have a dinner plan (to avoid eating out).
I save PDF copies of my credit card and banking statements to a “finance” folder on my computer, rather than saving the paper copy. I’ve also been (slowly) scanning past years’ copies so that I can throw away yet more paper.
I have one file that holds bills to be paid, stamps and return address labels – Yes, I’m old school. I have another area with categorized files for all the paid bills. I’ve just created a spreadsheet to track our expenses as we are going to have to really watch our budget with two kids in college this year.
I know this is not popular but I pay all my business related expenses on my credit card. This simplifies paying and also simplifies tax time. I can just run a report and it categories everything for me. I am not good at saving every little receipt, so this helps me a lot. Of course, it goes without saying that I pay the bill in full each month…no atter what the amount. I also get 1% back to put towards the bill. And it is a no fees credit card.
I also pay all my personal expenses by cash. I give myself and my husband a single amount each week. This for my husband goes towards gas and anything else he needs. Mine goes towards the food for the house and any other needs (my gas goes on my cc as an expense because of my business).
My husband sits down 2 times per month to pay all the bills in the house. I know what all the bills are and how much money we have but he does the actual bill paying. On his desk is a flexible file folder with categories to file all paid bills, and a basket with the checkbook, calculator, stamps and all bills to be paid. It works for us!
I wish I could say I’m organized about my finances but that would be a lie. I could definitely use these books!
Well I finally joined the 21st century and now do my banking online (it has helped me tremendously). I also have become extremely focused when it comes to our food budget…lists,sales,occasional coupons,better meal plans etc.
I use a free online budget tool. Works great and it has helped me to easily figure out which categories were overspent each month and needed adjusting. My finances are going much smoother now.
I just tackle them as they come along , or I’m doomed.
I used to be super-organized when I was getting out of debt (Dave Ramsey’s snowball system worked for me) but now that I’m out of debt I’ve been a little lax in tracking my spending. I’m NOT accruing more debt, but I’m sure I’ve been buying too many lattes and I could be saving more….
I do a yearly budget for an overview and then do a monthly budget at the first of the month before anything is spent. I track spending on paper and am considering excel spread sheet. A bit behind the times but it works for me.
As always, appreciate the give-a-way.
I use Quicken to track every dime of our money and budget carefully using it. I actually have our monthly bills/recurring expenses in “the system” from now until next January because I like to see ahead financially…it helps to keep me on task budget wise.
I would so love to have this book. When I was younger, I was SO on top of my finances. But as I get older, I have “let myself go” (financially speaking). I know I NEED to get control of my finances, but I guess I have gotten older and lazier! Please help me!
We use Pear Budget and an excel spreadsheet to keep track and reconcile bank accounts. All regular bills are automated and we receive e-mail reminders as well. My biggest ongoing challenge is to try to reduce/eliminate every bill I am able to. Going to eliminate one more monthly bill in the summer by paying for internet one year in advance and getting a 10% discount. Always inspired by the blog Katy. Thanks!
no matter how hard i try or what i do, i usually end up right at the due date……but i try!
I put the due date and amount on all bills when they arrive and place them together on a shelf in the order they’re due. Prior to the first bill’s due date I gather them and pay them all online in one batch. This way no bills are missed and since my husband hates computers he has access to paper bills and can pay them if I’m not able to do so.
I am old school, though I do open all of my mail right by the recycle bin, where I throw all junk mail and I have a bill basket where I keep all of my stamps,return address labels,envelopes, & pens. Simple, yet effective.
For 2012, I’ve been trying to develop the habit of keeping financial things carefully marked on the calendar. Fewer nasty surprises.
I’ve been trying to get better at using Mint but really feel like a cash and envelope system is the way that would work best for me…I’m also reading your money or your life with is pretty eye opening, in terms of putting purchases in perspective.
We write down everything we spend, but don’t really have a budget to fit it into. At the moment we are scamblinga bit to cover some unexpected medical expenses and vet bills so I could really use these books it seems!
i automate as well. i hate wasting paper and i always review my bills when i get their email
I keep a file for all my donation receipts. That way they are all together and ready to go at the end of the year.
I keep all of my bill paying stuff in my Wonderfile: stamps, envelopes, free return address labels. When a bill comes in, i tuck that into my Wonderfile as well. Twice a month I pull out the Wonderfile and pay bills. Once a month I file all of my statements. I also keep a tablet in my file to record all of my “business” phone calls in. Like when I had to call a credit card company 8 times to reverse charges I didn’t make. I record the date, time, agent’s name and confirmation number. My kids know when I pull out the Wonderfile I need quiet time. LOL
I use mint.com to help. I pay the majority of my bills in six month or 12 month chunks, and have reminders set on my phone each month for the rest.
Mint.com has been most valuable to me in managing what interest I earn. I have a credit union account that gives you stellar interest up to a certain dollar amount, and a few similar deals. mint helps me make sure my money is properly allocated over four accounts.
It’s also handy cause I can look at my automatic retirement contributions! I felt like I wasn’t doing much to save for retirement until I added that.
We participate in online banking and use online bill pay whenever possible. Receipts for bills that have been payed are printed and then filed in a folder labeled for each category( utilities, mortgage, medical, etc.)
I use the pay and pray method. Not something I recommend.
Oh, this is great, I love Liz Weston!
Well, here’s my old fashion way of keeping track: I have a 1 hour commute each way to work and back 4 days per week. I keep a note pad in my door pocket with all the bills listed on it. I am currently on a mission to pay off all debt, so I cross them off or change the balance to the new lower balance on my note pad each time I make a payment. I look at this and ponder and rethink my option about this as I’m driving. It keeps me aware of it at all times, so I can’t have that out of site out of mind problem. It’s with me always, which makes me deal with it! Thank you for the opportunity to win another learning tool.
We have maintained an Excel spreadsheet each year since were married, with specific budgets for each category that we adjust from year to year. This has worked well for us. We enter every receipt and expense. Helps us track utility, family and food expenses closely.
I have an Excel spreadsheet as well. After reading YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE I had a spreadsheet with a gazillion categories. I found out that just made it so complicated I resisted using it, so a couple years ago I went to much more general categories. Still gives me the big picture of where we stand month to month.
My hubby uses Quicken, and I’ve always been a paper-checkbook kind of gal. We’re still … um … trying to figure out a system that works for us. 😀
I have a one page spreadsheet I track monthly spending in each category – I know what has and has not been paid, expected cost and past payments
I keep a Google spreadsheet, so I can keep track of bills, amount spent, and date posted even when I’m not at home.