phefftt.....if I just opened the mail

[Steely]

when it arrived!
What is the deal with people like me and procrastination?
I have bucket loads of bills, past due bills, ins that needs to be filed just staring a hole through me. My credit is trashed because of this little issue I have of "bill denial".

I am trying to tackle it, slowly, but I get about 10 minutes into it and I want to scream. grrrrrr.
If I just opened the mail when it arrive - and handled it - this would not be a problem!!!!

 

[Hound dog]

I'm bad at procrastination. It's one of my biggest faults. When I was doing the bills I had a notebook and a little rubbermaid box to keep monthly bills in, another shoe box for other bills that were going to take longer to tackle. When I first started I had to actually write for me to pay each bill when it was due on the wall calender so I wouldn't forget. After several months I had the routine down.

It was those medication bills and the like that really got to me. For places I had multiple bills I called and asked to have them combined. It made it much simpler. Then I'd tackle the smaller amt balances first so I could feel like I was accomplishing something. lol

 

[DammitJanet]

Steely...Im horrible about it too.

I hate mail so much that I try to get everything sent email...lol. Im also bad about paying bills on time. Some of it is because of when we have the funds available but some of it is because I lose track of dates. We were paying a $5 late fee every single stupid month on a water bill that was never more than about 15 to 20 bucks. How stupid was that? Over the course of a year I was paying $60 in late fees! I could have paid several months water bills...lol. What irritated me was they didnt have an online website where I could just go and pay it online and they wouldnt let me call in and pay it by debit card so I was always rushing in on the last day of the month and paying it late. They said I had to have a blank check to start drafting it from my account and I hate drafting. Plus, I shredded all my checkbooks when Cory stole my checks. I looked around and found one old checkbook which I had kept just so I would have the number of my checking account and in it was 1 blank check! I used that and got the drafting started so I could stop paying the stupid late fees. LOL.

Now if I can just convince my cell phone company to change my due date, all will be peachy keen.

 

[Steely]

Oh yea. I hear ya both. I just spent an hour trying to get my cell phone to be debited from my account, because I cannot seem to remember to actually write the check and mail it.
And I just walked up the hill to pay the water that apparently was due to be turned off last week.
The medical bills are the worst. Especially with a difficult child, and all their cr@p to be filed with ins.
Now I just looked at the car ins and realized the wrong car is on it! Grand! But do you think there is anyone there on a Sat. Nope. Nada. I have to wait until Monday when I am at work, and busy, to take an extra minute to call them.
I need a secretary!!!

 

[klmno]

I spent years being so good about that kind of stuff. I got paid every 2 weeks and had my bills time so I only had to open them every 2 weeks and paid the bills faithfully when I got paid. Now I am horrible about it. You are not alone in this!

 

[Marguerite]

Steely, in your case I think depression is a major factor. It makes it very easy to feel overwhelmed and so you take the short-term course of action that makes you feel better - for now. Every envelope with a window in it is scary, so you bury it.

husband has set up spreadsheets for all our transactions. So it's not just bills, but receipts we log. Because you cold be losing money too, by not claiming stuff on insurance. Or you could be losing money with unexplained credit charges whichh can easily slip by people who don't double-check.

We log all expenses, all receipts. Even the groceries which I pay for with credit card, get logged. Then when the bill comes in, we compare it to our spreadsheet. For every item on the bill that is also on our spreadsheet, we change the colour or tick a box. That way we can know roughly how much credit we have left. It also helps us know if a cheque hasn't been presented.

Medical expenses - some of it we can claim, some of it we can't. What we can't claim gets tallied up and used in our tax returns. Keeping it all together is really useful.

Opening the bills - it's not fun, but if you can view the process of matching purchases you already know about on the spreadsheet, to the statement when it arrives, view it as a puzzle, then maybe it makes it a bit easier to open it up.

Whatever you do, you need a system. The computer can help, even if it's only to keep track of it all.

The fact that you're having this trouble tells me you need to share this info with a therapist. Let THEM worry for you (they may then be worried that you won't pay their bill!)

Marg

 

[Lothlorien]

I have bill denial too, but I don't wait that long to pay. Marg is right that it probably has to do with depression and that opening the bills and seeing how much you owe doesn't help. Online bill pay is a good way of tackling that. If it doesn't automatically take the money out, you can have the bank send a check each month to a certain institution. Most banks have a free trial period and then it's about $7. a month. This might cut your time in half with dealing with bills. Then you will only have to deal with changing balance accounts like credit cards.

 

[timer lady]

I've been this way over the last year; for me it's stress & depression. I cannot stand to open another piece of mail.

It's a one step at a time kind of deal. Toss junk mail, open the rest, file what needs to be filed & put your bills in a folder marked "to be paid on pay day".

My Occupational Therapist (OT) has me in a routine where I download my bank activity twice a week & pay bills every other week. I had to get a handle on it.

You will get out of this as well.