There was a time when I would pile all of my paper statements in hoards on my kitchen counter and when the "inspiration hit me," I would sporadically spew them all over my living room floor and sort by what was late, really late, and extremely late (I kid you not!). It was probably the most immature and illogical way to handle my finances, but at the time I didn't have a strong idea of what a credit history was, how important it was to be timely with the payment of my bills, and most importantly: how to be organized.

As you can probably imagine, due to my irresponsibility in my first few months of managing my finances, I accumulated quite a bit of debt. However, upon discovery of my epiphany, I decided it was time to take control over my reckless habits and establish a system that to this day works perfectly... at least for myself. =)

If you are just starting out on creating a system of payment, I would first recommend building a makeshift calendar that you can scribble down which days every single bill is due. Then observe which time of the month most of them land on - beginning, middle, or the end? If you see one area of your calendar is particularly clogged up with bills, mark down the remaining payments that aren't in that area. Often creditors will change the time of month they are due to accommodate one more convenient for you (just double check how your interest payments will be affected by this if they are for a credit card or loan). Make a few calls and see if you can condense as many of them as you can to one specific week.

Once you have coordinated all of your payments into a close time frame, construct one more calendar that marks each payment a week before it is due as "PAY BILL XYZ". If you use a calendar maintenance system at your job, schedule in a note on the day each payment is to be made to double reminder to yourself.

From there you should set yourself up to make all of your payments electronically as well as receive all of your statements via email (if you haven't done so already). Many banks have really fantastic bill management tools to pay all of your monthly bills with just a flew clicks. For instance, if you have a payment due to Macys, a payment due to your car company (such as Ford), and a payment due on one of your student loans, you can set up your bank to include all of these payments on one page. With a simple click of your mouse, all of them will be POOF - PAID! They can also be set up to send you reminders of when they are due. This saves you from having to hop from website to website paying various creditors, or from sending out several checks in one month. With three solid reminders, you should never be late on a payment (at least not due to a lack of organization).

As far as budgeting your paycheck to pay them, people are paid at various times throughout the month. I would simply get in the habit of paying your bills a week before they are due, and setting yourself up with a stable budget to follow. It is vitally important that if you get paid in the beginning of the month (and you know all of your bills are due in the latter portion of it) that you maintain a "real balance" of how much disposable income you actually have to spend and to save. This way, you will be sure to never overdraw and incur those hefty overdraft fees.