I’m notorious for missing bills. I’m sure I have paid several hundred dollars of late fees in my lifetime, which I can’t really afford to be doing.

I don’t have so much money that I’m willing to set up auto-payment for all of the bills online (for fear of risking overdraft), but I did set up auto-payment for 2 of my smaller bills through my bank website.

For the rest, I set up a Google Calendar with alerts. So, I get notified the day I need to put bills in the mail (I thought about notifying myself further in advance, but then I’d put it off and probably forget.) Now I just have to remember to take it to the post office once I fill it out! If I still have trouble, I’ll set up 2nd alerts for the day after the payment should be mailed, saying “Have you mailed the Credit Card bill yet?” I also enabled the calendar widget in Google Labs so it shows up in my GMail sidebar.

Now if I could only get better about balancing my checkbook. (Thank goodness for online bank statements!)