Well, it is not surprising that money goes missing out of nowhere. First, you got plenty of it since you worked last weekend. Next, you get your paycheck and realize that you have an overdraft fee bigger than concert tickets. The reality is that even majority of adults cannot manage their budget wisely, but you can beat them at that. Automatic reminders of bills will ensure that you will never have to pay late fee again.
There is no need to pay someone to act as your financial advisor or to buy some fancy software for it. All the stuff that you need is right there on your laptop or smartphone. Google Calendar and Apple Calendar are absolutely free and extremely powerful if you figure out how to use them properly. They are your personal financial bodyguards which protect you from any "bad guys", like late fees.
Most people are doing mistake treating online calendar as just another paper planner. They just put some date in it and forget about it until deadline appears. To make it work, you have to use all the "repeat" and "notification" functions. It turns a regular reminder into automatic assistant which hounds you until you complete the task.
The first step is creation of a recurring event. Go to your calendar and find a button to create an event. Name the event like "Pay Spotify Premium" or "Rent Due". It may seem redundant but it is necessary, since you are going to look at it quickly.
Next, you have to find an option saying "Does not repeat" or simply "Repeat". It must be selected right away. Set repeating period to monthly since almost all bills are paid monthly. But if you have some quarterly payment, like car insurance, set repeating to every three months.
Powerful tool is in the settings of notifications. Default alert appearing right before the event starts is absolutely useless, since it means that you are already late. Set first alert three days before deadline to give yourself time to send money or to ask your parents for it if you don't have enough money at the moment.
Add a second notification right before deadline day. This way, when you will be awoken and have a breakfast and you will hear an alert, you won't be able to ignore it and will be forced to open a payment app and make a transaction.
Some students may think that they will get bored of these alerts and will ignore them. Well, that is true, but you can fix this problem by naming your events properly. Instead of naming your event "Phone Bill" name it "Pay Phone Bill or Service Gets Cut". A small touch of fear will become a great motivation to keep your calendar clean.
How about variable amount bills, like credit card bills? An online calendar cannot predict the future, but still can remind you to check your balance. Add "Check Credit Card Balance" event five days before deadline so you will have enough time to see how much money you need to transfer.
Speaking about color coding which is a great tool for visual learners. Choose some color, let it be red. All your financial obligations must be marked with red color. This way you will see that there are red squares appearing opposite to your educational and social events and creating a hierarchy which says "Complete those red squares first or your month will be hard".
If you use an iPhone, Apple Calendar will be working smoothly with other apps. You can use Siri to create a reminder to pay some bills without taking your hands off from whatever you are doing. Just say "Hey Siri, create a reminder to pay my car insurance every month on the 15th" and it will take you five seconds but save you hours of headache.
Google Calendar works great if you use Android or Gmail. You can connect it to your email and let your billing and confirmation emails to create an event automatically. However, in case of manual bills you will have to use a method of manually creating a recurring event to have complete control over notifications.
Interesting trick is to connect your calendar to budget application, such as YNAB or Mint. While calendar will remind you when to pay something, budget application will show you how to pay. Knowing that you already have necessary sum saved for payment in your budget makes pressing "Pay Now" button easy and painless.
What if you get a new debit card and all your auto-payments stop working? The answer is to search your calendar for all recurring bill events and just change them in one afternoon. This way, you create a list of all companies which have your payment information which can be useful from security point of view.
Be honest. You are busy with studying, extracurricular activities and social life. You don't have a brain capacity to memorize all those dates. Relying on your memory is a surefire way of failure. Relying on an online calendar is a surefire way of success.
Think of this approach as a fortress which protects your credit score. Every timely payment is a brick of that wall. Every missed payment is a blow of a sledgehammer. Once calendar app will do all the work for you, you will only need to follow its instructions.
Moreover, you must realize that it is a skill which can be easily used in your adult life. People who have problems with bills in their thirties are people who never developed a system to manage them. Thus, you can skip all that "broke college student" phase and learn it the hard way.
Furthermore, you can share your calendar with your accountability partner. If you have some parent or sibling helping you with finances, you can share your "Bills" calendar and allow him/her to see if you have missed some payments without sending any awkward messages.
There is an interesting feeling of pride when you see all your bills organized in one place. You feel like you have everything under control despite laundry pile. This visual organization helps you decrease your background anxiety, leaving you brain power for fun things.
Use half an hour tonight. Grab your phone. Make a list of all monthly payments. Input those events in your calendar with repeat function and two notifications. There is no need to overthink it – just put data in there.
Once you pressed "save" button, you can forget about it until alert ringing. Then, when it rings, don't press "snooze" button. Complete your task right away. Your future self, who will have some extra cash to buy shoes or video games, will thank you for your efforts.
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