A Collection of Articles To Help You Get Caught Up On Your Bills
When you’re behind on your bills, life is stressful! For many, it becomes their main focus in life. It can affect your work, family life, and when it comes to relationships, it can make you say and do things you’ll regret.
You can’t do much to get caught up with your bills without a change taking place.
Something needs to change, and you’re better off looking for a long-term fix. You don’t need a temporary solution. You need a permanent one to keep you from ever falling behind again.
In this post, you’ll find a collection of articles to improve your current situation and come up with a solution for a stronger financial future. The articles are written by various authors, giving you a wide perspective of dealing with bills and debt. The articles are organized in sections for your convenience. Before you get to the resources, I would like to share my advice for getting caught up on your bills.
Schedule Your Payments
Have you ever considered you may be behind on your bills because of the schedule for your payments?
For example:
- Your mortgage payment is withdrawn on the 28th of every month.
- Your insurance is withdrawn on the 30th.
- Your car payment is due on the 1st of every month.
With the above payment schedule, you have a surge of withdrawals near the end of each month. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, then this is going to be a problem every month. By changing the dates of the withdrawals, you can eliminate the monthly surge.
Using the example above, leave the car payment as is, change the mortgage payment to the 10th, and the insurance payment to the 20th. You still have the same amount of money going out, but it’s spread out, making it easier to cover the payments.
Make a List of All Your Bills:
It’s scary and may make you cringe to figure out your monthly bills because deep down inside, you know your monthly bills are more than you’re monthly income…BUT It has to be done, without your list, your walking with a blindfold on, and the only guide you have is the wall you keep bumping into.
It’s time to list your bills. Write the average amount of each utility bill, mortgage, insurance, TV, Internet, phone, etc. Be sure to list your bills by the due date, so you can see if there are payments that are too close together.
Example of your monthly expenses:
Bill | Amount | Payment Due Each Month On The |
Car Payment | $ 479.24 | 1st |
Cell Phone | $ 53.29 | 7th |
Mortgage | $1,150.29 | 15th |
Observations and Considerations:
1. Are there any payment dates that you could rearrange for better cash flow?
2. Are there any bills you can eliminate?
3. Are there any bills you can reduce?
Make a List of Assets:
These are things you own. It could be anything that has a monetary value. List the asset and the market value, which is what the asset is worth if you sold it today.
Add a column for ownership value, for example, if you sell your house for $319,000 and you owe $270,000, you would have $42,000, and that’s your Ownership Value.
An example of your asset could look like:
Asset | Market Value | Money Owed | Ownership Value |
Home | $ 319,000 | $ 270,000 | $ 42,000 |
Car | $ 22,500 | $ 5,500 | $ 17,000 |
Tools | $ 4,200 | $ 0 | $ 4,200 |
Asset List – Observations and Considerations:
Are there any assets you could sell that can get you caught up on your bills?
Looking at the above list:
The car is worth $22,500, and if you sold it today after paying off what you owe, you would have $17,000 left. You could buy a car for $12,000. You now have $5,500 that you could use for bills.
You have one less monthly payment, which you paid every month in the amount of $479.24. This one change could get you back on track because you have paid off debt in the amount of $5,500 and you have reduced your monthly bills by $479.24
You could also refinance your home and that would give an option to pay off debts and restructure your finances.
Make a List of Your Spending:
Now it’s time to list your daily and weekly spending.
Your list can look like:
Item | Daily Amount | Weekly Amount | Monthly Amount | Yearly Amount |
Coffee | $1.85 | $9.25 | $37.00 | $444.00 |
Lunch | $11.00 | $55.00 | $220.00 | $2640.00 |
Gas | $10.00 | $50.00 | $200.00 | $2400.00 |
Spending List – Observations and Considerations:
This list is where things get interesting. If you filled in all the items on your list, then you could have some areas that are eye-openers. For example, in the list above, you can see lunch is costing $220 a month totaling $2640 a year. This list will allow you to make changes where you can shift money from small spending to your bill payments.
Make a List of All Your Income:
It’s time to list all money that comes in. List all of your net income and any other money that comes in other than your job. This exercise gives you a chance to think about any opportunities to make more money, whether it’s a raise at work, or doing something on the side that can generate revenue.
Outlook:
With all your list complete, you have an overall snapshot of your finances. With everything listed, you can make changes and start to improve your finances. You can cut back on spending or look to improve your income or both if possible.
Resource Section:
How To Get Caught Up on Bills
How to Catch Up on Bills When You Fall Behind – Clark Howard
Behind on Bills? How To Catch Up In 6 Simple Steps
Behind On Bills? How To Catch Up
How to Get Caught Up on Bills – 4 Things You Must Do
How to Catch Up on Bills You Are Behind on – Clever Girl Finance
How to Catch Up on Bills and Start Paying Off Debt in 7 Steps
Behind On Bills? 11 Tips To Catch Up And Get Ahead | Be The Budget
How To Get Caught Up On Bills When You’re Behind
How to Budget When You Are Behind on Bills – The Budget Mom
How to Catch Up When You Are Behind on Bills | Simple Money Mom
Personal Loan To Catch Up on Bills
Bill consolidation: How to do it with a personal loan – Credit Karma
Take out a personal loan to catch up on bills & pay off small debts?
Behind On Your Mortgage: 6 Ways To Catch Up | Bankrate
Top 3 Personal Loans for Bad Credit (with Monthly Payments)
How To Catch Up on Bills Quickly
10 Immediate Actions to Take When You’re Behind On Bills – Healthy, Savvy & Wise
11 Ways to Get Out of Debt Faster – The Simple Dollar
How To Catch Up on Credit Card Debt
How to Get Out of Credit Card Debt in 4 Steps – NerdWallet
How to get out of credit card debt – Credit Karma
5 Tips for Paying Off Credit Card Debt | Credit.com
How to Get Out of Credit Card Debt | Real Simple
How to get out of credit card debt – Creditcards.com
Apps To Help Catch Up on Bills
12 Money Apps That Will Help You Save and Eliminate Debt in 2017
10 Best Money Apps for 2020: How to Manage, Track and Make Money
5 Apps That Help You Keep Track of Your Money | Payoff Life
Mint Bills: Bill Reminders, Bill Tracking
10 Cheap Apps for Keeping Your Bills in Check – Paste
12 Free Apps To Track Your Spending And How To Pick The Best One For You
How To Reduce Your Debt On A Low Income
10 Ways to Pay Off Debt When You’re Broke
How To Get Out Of Debt On A Low Income – Money Under 30
6 Tips: How To Pay Off Debt On A Limited Income | Chime
How To Get Out Of Debt With A Low Income | Bankrate
How to Get Out of Debt With A Low Income | LendingTree
How To Get Out Of Debt Fast Even On A Low Income
Low Income? Here’s How to Get Out of Debt
How To Pay Off Debt Fast With Low Income – MagnifyMoney
Courses Related to Getting Caught Up on Bills
Courses on Lynda.com Related to Personal Money Management
Courses on Udemy.com Related to Personal Money Management
Books Related to Getting Caught Up on Bills
Books from Amazon Related Personal Money Management
Google Book Search Related to Personal Money Management
The Latest about Getting Caught Up on Bills
In this section, you’ll be able to stay up-to-date on the latest related to personal finance including videos, news, the latest Google search results, what people are tweeting, and more.
Google Searches
Latest Searches Related to Getting Caught Up on Bills
Latest Scholar Searches Related to Getting Caught Up on Bills
Latest Image Searches Related to Getting Caught Up on Bills
News
Latest News Related to Getting Caught Up on Bills
Tweets Related to Getting Caught Up on Bills
YouTube
Videos Related to Getting Caught Up on Bills