How to easily stay on top of yearly payments

Yearly payments can become a budget breaker if you are not prepared for seasonal payments! Use the FREE yearly budget planner, a yearly budget worksheet that will make it super easy to stay on top of yearly payments. Learn how with these step-by-step instructions! – 

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Going through my account statements. What the …?! Someone stole my money! Stop thief! My heart is racing, hands get sweaty, and … wait.

Ah, ok. It’s the annual payment for electricity.

Can you relate? Those seasonal expenses are oftentimes so super unpredictable and catch you by surprise.

Although they don’t actually. A year can feel so short but at the same time, most seasonal payments are predictable. They come at the same time each year, half-year, or quarter.

You just forgot.

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How to stay on top of seasonal payments?

I was fed up being terrified about bank statements with unexpected charges. I felt they came always at the wrong moment right when I decided to stop overspending and save some cash. They ruined everything right from the start and left me frustrated.

If you want more peace monitoring your bank accounts or opening up letters you need to know what is happening when. When is each yearly bill due? What happens in each quarter of your year?

You may have a simple budget in place that lets you know what is coming in and needs to be paid each month. But payments that don’t come that regularly can easily mess up your saving plan.

I was struggling with this for a long time. With my best intention I really, really wanted to create a fancy bill tracker or yearly payment plan.

I never got started. With each payment due that, again, caught me by surprise I wanted to do something about it. But I forgot about my plan soon.

Until the next Stop thief-fright.

An Easy yearly payment tracker

One day, the struggle came to an end. I found an income tracker in my store-bought budget book that was to track incoming money each month. But unlike other income trackers, it was a yearly spreadsheet.

I had a lightbulb moment!

All this time, I had been overthinking the yearly payment matter. It was so simple. Instead of tracking income, I put down the yearly payments due each month. After the 12 months of the year, there was an extra column to sum everything up. For the first time ever I saw our seasonal payments in one place. I finally had an effective yearly payment tracker! It made so much sense.

From now on, every Stop-Thief-moment was a got-another-one-moment. I put down every seasonal payment I had forgotten about in my yearly bill tracker.

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This is how it looks:

How to Use the Yearly payment spreadsheet

On the left, you fill in the kind of expense, for example, “Car Insurance”. You fill in the amount due in the cell of the month in which it will be charged. At the bottom, you can sum up the expenses for each month. In the right, you will sum up all expenses for one kind of payment if you pay them each quarter or half-year.

Finally, I summed everything up for the entire year and put this down in the pink cell on the lower right.

 

The crucial extra step for ultimate peace

At a glance, you will know what extra expenses you have in one entire year. Now, you divide it by 12. This is the amount of money you need to put into savings each month to prepare for all seasonal payments of the year. After paying a seasonal bill you smile and take this amount of money out of your saving account. No financial tides will have you struggle with the monthly budget.

Create an overview of yearly payments with simple tools

You can start your yearly payment overview right now using what you already have. Create a file in Excel, Google, or an organizing tool like Evernote.

Psst... Evernote’s free plan is great for organizing mom life. Learn how in this post!

Start filling in each seasonal payment you can think of. Go through your old account statements and watch out for the month in which they are due. If you want a done-for-you template I got you covered. Get your digital yearly payment spreadsheet in the resource library. If you prefer pen and paper, download the yearly payment overview printable from the free resource library.

Task list to stay on top of seasonal payments

• Download, print, or create a spreadsheet for yearly payments
• Note down each payment you can think of
• Check old bank statements to catch some more
• If a new payment turns up, put it down in the spreadsheet
• Sum up what amount is due each month
• Sum up all expenses for the entire year
• Divide them by 12 and put this amount of money away each month
• Create a super simple budget and include the yearly payment in your fixed expenses

Don’t worry if you don’t finish the yearly payment tracker in the first sitting. Make sure your yearly payment overview worksheet is easy to access. Then, update it throughout the year. You WILL inevitably catch all those nasty seasonal payments over time.

Well done! Now relax and enjoy this piece of financial peace you have created for yourself.

More helpful posts to create financial peace:

• How to create a budget book to track expenses like the CFO of your family finances
• How to include the right budget book categories to make your expense tracking super efficient
• 5 Rookie mistakes that ruin your budget book and how to avoid them

 

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