By Jason White
I did it again. I let a small utility bill slip through the cracks and got dinged with a $1.50 late fee. I know, it is only a $1.50, but since I'm on a daily mission to spend less and save more every little bit I have to pay in "stupid tax" gets in the way of success. Most of our household bills are on autopilot, but this is one of the few than I have to keep up with manually and send in a "snail mail" check. Over the years I've implemented eleborate tickler systems, email reminders and various other ways to remind myself not to forget to pay these few paper bills. At some point they all fail, usually due to my own procrastination or some technical or procedural glitch. That was, until I implemented a fool-proof plan I refer to as the "One Touch System" for household budgeting.
When a Bill Reaches Your Hands, Pay It
I used to be the world's worst at picking up a bill, reading over the numbers, and then returning it to the stack without resolution. My streak of procrastination extended into other areas of my life as emails sat in my inbox waiting for response, voicemails went unanswered, and a number of small household projects added to my "honey-do" list stacked up incomplete. This latest scheduling screw-up was the last straw. From that point forward I vowed to pay things immediately as I received them. No more stacks of bills and unopened mail. From now on I would force myself to stop what I am doing, sit down and write the check, address the envelope, apply a stamp and move it to my dresser so I would remember to drop in a mailbox on the way to work in the morning. The first few times I stuck to this routine really annoyed me. It seemed I was always in the middle of something, or simply not in the mood to sit down and pay a bill.
No More Paycheck to Paycheck
Of course, this approach also required some changes in our household finances in order to pay a bill as soon as it came in. In the past, bills stacked up and were paid once or twice a month, usually around the time I received a paycheck. The thought of paying something early seemed impossible because I usually needed the next paycheck to cover the next set of bills. To implement our new "One Touch System" we would somehow have to get ahead and accumulate a sum of money in our checking account to provide a "float" from which we could pay monthly bills. To do this, we saved $1,000 in a savings account over the course of a few weeks by moving some from each paycheck, selling a couple small items on eBay, and saving any "found" money we encountered from rolled coins to the occasional gift. Once the $1,000 was in place we moved it to our checking account in a single transaction, and then moved the amount left over back to savings. This left us with exactly $1,000 in our checking account the night before my next paycheck was scheduled to be deposited.
The $1,000 deposit from savings would become the floor amount for our checking account, instead of the usual zero-dollar balance we occasionally approached. The newly implemented floor amount allowed us to occasionally dip below to pay a bill that would be covered by a paycheck a few days away, without fear of an overdraft fee from our bank. Before implementing the "One Touch System" we would let that bill sit until pay day, which depending on billing cycles could be dangerously close to the bill's due date, as was the case with the last bill we were late paying. Critics point out that by giving up this "float" we are losing some opportunity costs that our money could be earning. Perhaps, but by paying these bills as they arrive I no longer have to manager the open loops in my brain to remember when they are due, and I don't have to rely on software to remind me when to pay. For me, this is worth any gains we could realize by investing these relatively small amounts elsewhere.
I'm proud to report that implementing this budgeting system has eliminated late payments and "oh-crud" moments from our monthly budget. Now, if I could just apply the same system to this stack of emails in my inbox.
译文:
到手即付--家庭财政的好帮手
By Jason White
哎~又忘记了，我又把水电费的账单遗留在一堆杂物之中，最后又因为晚付费而多缴了1.5美元。虽然只有1.5美元，但是积少成多是我每天的必修课，这样无谓的“税收”显然称为了我通向成功的绊脚石。现在大多数的家庭账单都是自动缴费的，但是水电费却是少数需要自己留意并用支票支付的。这些年来，我先后尝试了备忘系统，邮件提示和其他各种各样的方法来防止自己忘记去付费。 然后在过去的某一时刻，他们统统失灵，有时是因为技术或是程序的小故障，但是多数是因为我自己的一再拖延。直到我运用了一个很简单，被我称为“到手即付系统”的方法，我才真正做到了家庭预算。
账单到手即付
在过去，我最坏的习惯就是拿起账单，看一看费用，接着就又将其丢回杂物堆。 我的生活充斥着我的懒惰：收件箱里都是没有回复的邮件，语音邮件也没有回复，妻子给我的任务单上也没有如数完成。 这次行程安排的失败是我的最后一次了。从那往后，我发誓不再有成堆的账单和没有开启的邮件，只要收到账单，就立马付清。 从现在起，我会迫使自己停下手头的工作，坐下写好支票，在信封上填上地址，粘上邮票，为了早上记得在去工作的路上投进邮箱，并将它放进了我的衣服口袋。刚刚开始的几次，我实在是很不习惯。好像我总是在忙什么，不能静下心来写支票。
不要在做月光族
当然，想要账单一到就可以付清的话，也需要在家庭财政上有所改变。 在之前，我一个月付一，两次账单，且通常都是在我领薪水的时候，其余的时候都是对其置之不理的。想要早一点付账单的想法是不可能实现的，因为我总需要下一次的薪水偿付这次的账单。 为了实行我们的“到手即付系统”，我们就要事先在经常账户里存有一笔流动资金，以便我们可以用来支付账单。 为了达到目的，在几周里我们要挪出一部分薪水，在易贝上卖出一些小物品并存下每一个偶然找到的硬币，这样我们的储蓄帐户慢慢就有了1000美元的积蓄。 一旦有了1000美元，就单独放进经常帐户，再将剩余的继续储蓄。这样在我发薪水之前就有了1000美元的经常帐户了。
1000美元的存款会是我们经常帐户的基础金额，这样我们也就不会再像过去一样经常碰到帐户余额为零的情况了。 新实施的基础金额允许我们偶尔的透支付账而不用担心会被银行多收取费用，因为几天后的薪水足以抵偿。 在实施“到手即付系统”之前，我们要到薪水日才能支付账单，这样靠支付周期拖延时间，很容易就像上次迟付账单一样一直到临近到期日才能付清。 评论家指出放弃这样的流动资金，我们就在失去机会成本。也许立即付清账单，我就不用担心脑子像开了口似的会忘记，然后要时时刻刻的记着他们的到期时间，也不用依赖软件提醒。 对我来说，用这样的小额存款的方法带来的收益与便利是值得的。
我可以很自豪的说这套预算系统可以有效的防止账单的迟缴，在每月预算时你再也不会烦恼。现在，如果有可能的话，我就该在将其用在回复邮件上了。