Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Best Ways to Organize Bills?

Posted by Cliff on from the indexing-and-sorting dept.

scorp1us asks: "Every year on the 1st of January, I start a new set of folders for storing my bills. Generally, I keep everything divided up by account. But this seems to take too long. I wait 3-6 months and get a big pile nad have to go about sorting it. I have been considering a per-month scheme - all bills go to one folder, each month. With all the CS people out there studying sorting algorithms, has anyone found a better approach?"

4 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Sorting Algorithms? by Nasarius · · Score: 2, Informative

    This really has nothing to do with sorting algorithms, unless you're using a database or something. No, you're talking about a very small data set (in CS terms) that you just have to organize in a way that best suits your needs. You haven't provided nearly enough information for anyone to make a serious suggestion.

    --
    LOAD "SIG",8,1
  2. I use a 3in binder by space_biker · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use a large binder to keep things together. The bills get hole-punched and inserted into the appropriate section and when you're ready to file the old ones, they're easy to access.
    Things like credit card receipts are paper-clipped or stapled to the invoices that they were charged to.
    I don't think it's the best right now, but it works better than our previous (non)filing system.

  3. Re:Multi-level caching based on access patterns by Resseguie · · Score: 2, Informative
    I have a system very similar to this and others listed.

    • I have a pile that I still need to deal with
    • I enter all bills in Quicken as I pay them
    • I put all paid bills in to a big box, adding them from the front (like a stack, and mostly sorted by date)
    • I also keep separate tax related boxes (that I can compare against Quicken records when needed)

    In addition:

    I also use something akin to this or this for keeping receipts. You can usually find one of these smaller expanding files with each pocket labeled by month. When I come in each day I empty my wallet of receipts and add them to the current month's pocket. (Okay, I'm usually lazy and drop them all in a pile on the corner of my desk until sometime near the end of the month, but you get the idea.) At the end of the year, I put the folder in the cabinet beside the box with the rest of the paid bills. Combined with Quicken records, I can usually find anything I need in a matter of minutes.

    Receipts and bills aren't a problem for me. More difficult for me is figuring out how to organize other important documents - retirement funds, medical benefits, etc. Here "sorted by date" isn't as useful and unlike bills, I find myself having to return to them from time to time to look up information. I've ended up just using hanging folders for each in a file cabinet, but I still find it frustrating to determine how much of the fluff you get in the mail should be stored, where to put it, and how to find it.

  4. Try a payment service by SkywalkerOS8 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Try using a payment service like PayTrust. All of your bills go to them and are scanned in and presented online. At the end of each year they offer to send you a CD with all of the bills for the year. The CD they send is browser-based but has a light Java app that acts as a local web server, allowing you to perform searches and sorting of the data through your browser. I've been using them(actually I started with paymybills.com which was bought out by them) for 4 years now and haven't regretted it once. I just ordered my 2003 CD which includes my 2000, 2001 and 2002 records. About half of my bills are delivered to them electronically now so those are HTML instead of JPEGs.