To Do

When it comes to paying bills, I have a system. Starting one year ago when we bought our house, I entered all my bills in my iPod touch to-do app one week before they are due. I pay the bill when the to-do reminder goes off.  Pretty simple.

Until...

The other day I got an email reminder from the gas company to pay my bill. Usually I ignore these because the bills aren't due for another few weeks and I like earning my pennies of interest in the meantime. I did notice in the email that the bill was quite high though. Then I looked at the electric bill and it too was high.

Now I'm thinking that there are little utility company gnomes coming into our house while me and Mrs. K are sleeping. They're opening fridges, cranking the a/c, probably have every light in the whole place on. All while I'm peacefully dreaming about early retirement.

A Utility Gnome Posse. You Have Been Warned!

Luckily that wasn't the case. It turns out the to-do app on my touch only schedules my monthly events for one year. The previous month just happened to be the one year anniversary of us buying our new house. So, the app gave me an anniversary gift of not paying my utility bills on time. SURPRISE! Instead of utility gnomes, it was just the bill total for the last two months, plus a nice little fee of $1.64 (there go my interest pennies) to remind us that we should pay on time. Needless to say, that app is no longer with us.

I looked around for a replacement and came up with Producteev. It has web access, mobile apps, and Mac apps. And, of course, it's FREE, otherwise I wouldn't be using it. So far so good, haven't missed any payments yet, but we have a ways to go before our home's second year anniversary.

What do you use as a reminder to pay your bills? Has that system ever failed you?

Photo by debabratad