Help!!

Brace yourself, this might be a long one!

I would like to start by saying I am now even more impressed with my SonicScrubber. I quit grout scrubbing last night halfway through the kitchen because the rest of the grout seemed clean enough and didn't need it. Well, after I got up this morning and saw my scrubbed areas all dry, there was a DEFINITE line where I scrubbed to where I didn't. Oh my. My scrubbed grout was SOOOO clean!! I didn't notice just how clean last night since it was still wet (and I was very tired). So right off the bat this morning, I'm back down on hands and knees scrubbing the rest so it's all sparkling clean now! (Did I mention I took the morning off since I have to go to the dentist?) Then I steam-mopped the kitchen/morning area and living room. I hadn't done that in a while so my floors are all nice and clean AND sanitized. :o) I love the steam mop!

Okay, so floors done. I wanted to start cleaning the entry way table and put away all our bags of stuff from this weekend when I remembered I had all these bills I needed to pay that I wanted to get done while I was home this morning and could focus on them. Up to the office I go with bills and checkbook in hand. I get through most of them, not including our home insurance since I have to transfer that money out of a different account, so I leave that for last. I get down to the credit card bill and realize if I write a check for that today, my checkbook will show only about $50 left. Eeek! Now, I know that it won't actually get posted to my account until after John gets paid on Friday, but still. I don't like seeing only $50 in my check register. Hmm...why then, when I ran the numbers at the beginning of the month I should have had plenty left after paying this bill? I think we might have overspent on our house projects this month. Guess all those $30 trips to Lowe's and Home Depot really add up. I guess to make me feel better, I'll just wait until Friday when John's check gets deposited and pay the bill online.

Now, onto insurance. I'm cutting it close this year. Insurance is due in 5 DAYS and I haven't paid it yet. Actually, I haven't even gotten our windstorm bill yet! Guess that's what we get for not escrowing. I just much rather like the idea of our insurance/tax money earning 2+% in our bank account rather than just sitting there with the mortgage company. Just means I have to deal with hassle of getting all this stuff paid on time.

The title of the post is "Help!!". That is because I think I need a better system for paying bills. Right now, I mostly rely on my Outlook calendar to tell me when the bills are due, then I have to remember to go find them on the entry table when I get home to pay them (which rarely happens in a timely manner). I used to take bills straight away to a holder on the bar so I would see what we have due coming up. But I have fallen down on keeping up with this. Mainly for the fact that I never actually look in the holder until it's too late to send in a check and just end up paying half of them (just in time) online. Then I forget to take the paid bill out of the holder so I end up with a couple months of the same bill in the holder and when I finally realize it, I freak out wondering if I actually got around to paying last months! Does anyone have a good system for keeping up with bills that WORKS?? This is defintely up there on my "need to reorganize" list...

What I feel like: