Hang ten moon doggies! I have seen a whole bunch of surfing movies in my life and I still am not too sure what that means, but it sounds really surfer-like, so it fits with my thematic premise this week.
Yesterday we introduced the concept of Bill Surfing , ok, we talked about it, but we never really explained what it really meant, but today, we really will define what that means (I hope).
We now have our list of expenses that we usually pay on a monthly basis, but we still have this quandary of only getting paid every two weeks, and what to do about it.
Solution 1 All At Once
Simply pay all of the bills from one of my pay cheques. While that does solve the problem it does mean that I have to do some judicious grocery shopping and a very tight final few days ’til I have a pay cheque that I can buy things with (assuming that one pay cheque can actually cover this entire group of bills, which in my case is not true).
Solution 2 Piece Meal
As each bill arrives pay it the moment it arrives and be done with the darn thing. This was kind of the methodology that I started working with before I came upon bill surfing. This method has the advantage of having some disposable income all the time, but not a very predictable out flow of money, especially if bills are being paid as direct withdrawals from your bank accounts.
Solution 3 Bill Surfing
What would happen if I could make my “BILLS” payment on each pay cheque equal (or as close to equal as I can make it)? This would mean that each pay cheque I would have a predictable amount of money going out, and I would know exactly what my disposable income actually is (and then plan any extra saving I wanted to do). How can I do this?
Read tomorrow and we’ll spill the beans on this highly effective and exciting new way of paying bills (this writing like I am publishing an info-mercial is a lot of fun, but must be really annoying to read).
Hey, no reading ahead!!! 🙂
Excellent comment, that is a good idea.
–c8j
What if you use the first two paycheques each month for bill paying, and the two times per year that you receive an extra cheque, you do something special with it? The special choice is yours — pay down your mortgage, make an investment or charitable donation, or even buy a wide screen TV. These extra cheques would be about 4% of your annual income, so figure what youwant to spend that 4% on and budget the rest of the year on the other 96%.
DAvid