Organizing Your Bills

Did you know that 1 in 3 adults in America don’t pay their bills on time?  Is one of those adults you?  I hate to admit it, but sometimes it is me.  I recently opened my gas bill to find that I was 3 months past due.  I frantically began searching my payments and previous bills.  I found that the first month, the payment went to the wrong company and the second month, I put the unpaid bill into the wrong stack.  What a nightmare.  I am not really surprised.  

This is what my desk looks like on any given day:

Once a week I take all the toys and other collectables off my desk, but they always seem to come back.  

What happens if you don’t pay your bills on time?  Well you can pay late fees, penalties, and interest.  Get far enough behind like I did with the gas, they can discontinue your service which can be costly to restore.  Consistently being behind on your bills can even hurt your credit score.  So how do you get organized?

• Dedicate a space for sorting your mail and sort it on a regularly.  For example, instead of tossing the mail on the first flat surface which changes daily, have a specific place to put it.  This keeps bills from ending up all over the house. 

• Sort the mail regularly.  This doesn’t have to be every day, but should be once a week.   Recycle the junk and sort bills in your sorting system.

• Have a file system to sort bills.  You can sort bills by type or by due date.   You may find it helpful to group bills by pay date, for example have a folder for bills when you are paid on the 15^th and on the 30^th (use the dates that make sense for your pay cycle)

• Consider setting some of your bills up for autopay such as your mortgage.   This will leave you with less to sort.   

However a system is only as good as its user, so once you decide on a system, stick with it.  It only takes a little while for your system to become your habit. 
 

Something New or Even Outrageous

Something new or something outrageous.  What was the first thing you thought of when you read the title?  Do you find the idea, scary or exciting? I recently read story of seventy-six year old woman who made it her goal to do at least one outrageous thing a day.  Why?  It keeps life from being boring and makes you unpredictable.   She lives life to the fullest.

Make it your goal to try something new this week or even something outrageous.  You don't have to go cliff jumping, it can be something small and obtainable.  Maybe, you try a new restaurant or a new type of food.  How about a new hairstyle or nail polish color?  Life gives us all types of opportunities to try new things we simply have to embrace them.

If you are really feeling courageous, try something that you feel like you can't do.  Think about it, could you do anything the first time that you tried?  In the words of Pablo Picasso .....

Beauty

What is beauty?  The dictionary tells us that beauty is a combination of pleasing qualities.  If someone ask you to describe yourself as beautiful would you?  What if you were ask to describe your best friend?  Most women have a hard time seeing the beauty in themselves.  Statistically a girl's self-esteem peaks at age 9.  It is hard to imagine that our best imagine of ourselves is obtain at such a tender age. 
 
One of my "Whys" for being a Thirty-One consultant is Thirty-One commitment to the empowerment of women.  The company names comes from Proverbs 31 which tells us the story of the virtuous woman.  My favorite versus is 31 "Many women have done some noble things but you surpass them all"  I share this versus at each of my parties and challenge the ladies to think how this versus applies to them and their lives - most have a hard time.  I remind them of all the roles they play - daughter, grand-daughter, niece, mom, aunt, grandma, best friend, and so many more - and how they fill those roles like no one else.  I then share with them the words of self-esteem that is on each of our URU products - UR Strong, UR Bold, UR True, URU.  I give each of them a card with these words and encourage them to look at it the next time they are having a rough day.

This week, Dove published the results of a social experiment they conducted.  They concluded  "Women are their own worst beauty critics. Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. At Dove, we are committed to creating a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety. So, we decided to conduct a compelling social experiment that explores how women view their own beauty in contrast to what others see."

I encourage you to watch this video that they published on YouTube.  It is compelling, eye opening and a little sad.

If you want to see even more visit Dove's Real Beauty Sketches page at http://realbeautysketches.dove.us/

Find the beauty in yourself.

Organize Your Car: Tame the Trash

When you look in your car what do you see?  Does it look something like this?  

I never seem to have enough hands to get everything from the car to the house especially the trash.  There always seems to be straw wrappers, papers and empty water bottles.  One of the tips for organizing your car is to stay on top of the trash by disposing of trash while pumping gas.  Want to make it even easier?  Create a trash can for your car using the Mini Utility Bin and a roll of small trash bags.

Store the trash bags in the bottom of the bin.  As an added bonus, you will always have a trash bag handy when needed.  

The next time you pump gas, you are ready to toss the trash bag and install another one.  Your car has a lot less clutter and the next time someone needs to ride in the front seat you won’t be frantically trying to find the floor board.  You can also use a Little Carry All Caddy for storing your tissue and hand sanitizer.  The next time someone sneezes you won’t be digging for the box of tissue and wondering where the hand sanitizer went.