Let's talk bills

The problem:
My bills were lopsided and we risk being overdrawn because we overspend in the second half. I took a look at them and we were paying more in the second half of the month. It just so happens that we pay our mortgage in the second half. Why? Good question. The answer: we just do it since it is easier right now. Oh, and plus we can. The bad thing is we were paying some expensive bills then too. We had extra in the first half left over. With the wrong thinking we could be and probably are overspending in the first half.

Sometime we are going to switch to making bi-monthly payments. But that requires: Paying our mortgage in the first week of the month and then making a half payment in the second half to start off our payments.

The benefit: we pay an extra week a year on our mortgage.

Back to the lopsided bills.

Here is what I did last night:

One. I discovered all of our fixed bills. The ones that are there every month that we have agreed to pay.

Two. I wrote down all of these bills and the amounts in a spreadsheet. I found out we do have enough each month to cover these expenses. Plus some.

Three. I looked up all of the due dates. If the due date fell in the first half of the month I wrote a 1 next to it; otherwise, I wrote a 2 next to the bill.

Four. I separated the bills out by which half of the month they were due. I got a total by each half and discovered the lopsidedness.

Five. I decided to fix the problem. I took several bills due in the second half of the month and decided to pay them now. I paid what I could online. We are calling about a few to see if we can change when they get automatically deducted.

Finally I have a general idea of how much we have a week to spend. If I sit down and budget that then there should be no problems.

I am going to figure out how to keep track of our money that goes to variable expenses.

I used to use Microsoft Word the problem is that the program is too complex. I can't really do what I want in it. Maybe it's this new version I have. It seems bloated. Maybe I should try its competitor, Quicken.

Meanwhile I am building my own money tracking application. It will be on the web and it will be based off of what I do--when what I am doing works.

Gotta go earn some money.