Quote:
Originally Posted by Bipolarartist
I came here to start this thread saw the one one decor this kinds of continues.
When I am relatively well I can keep track of things like appts go straight in my phone, I have a priority system for bills and payments, but as I'm getting more unwell this becomes a bit chaotic, appts get written on pieces of paper and lost, I put bills in the strangest places etc.
Has anyone found a solution for this. I am waiting for a med review in the public system of my country which should take months to get an appt but I'm spiralling up and have lost track of bills and overdue notices etc.
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I am currently paying my bills manually because I am practically broke and need to watch each payment like a hawk or else my account gets overdrawn.
If you are not in this situation, then why do you not have automatic payments for all your bills?
Go paperless as much as you can and automatic as much as you can. Going paperless and automatic is frontloading: you expend time and effort in the beginning but reap the rewards later. What you are trying to do is called being reactive rather than proactive - you react to bills and you react to overdue notices instead proactively setting up a system. Your system may not be perfect at once as you will need to iron out the kinks, but you need to start with SOMETHING. Make a spreadsheet with all your credit cards, internet, phone service, energy bill - everything recurrent. That would be Day 1 - just make a spreadsheet in which you corral all your recurrent expenses. The goal is to make the spreadsheet and that's it. You are done for the day.
Day 2 - develop a system for online access to these accounts. Basically, username and password. Mine is like this (I have not been able to learn how to use password generating apps):
I have a master password that has CAPS, lowercase, and numbers.
For an example, let us say that my master password is HBhb1463
Then I prepend this master password with something meaningful related to the site. ALWAYS in ALLAPS.
So on this site my meaningful word is PSYCH. My password would be PSYCHHBhb1234. On Amazon, my password would be AMAZONHBhb1463
These are not actual passwords, but examples.
This system works 95% of the time. In 5% of cases, websites ask for special characters, in which case I always prepend the whole thing with an exclamation point, e.g. !PSYCHHBhb1234
Note that some sites do not allow a string of consecutive integers, so my master password has 1463 - for that reason.
When I started using this system, I opened a spreadsheet titled "USERNAMES and PASSWORDS" and recorded the site in column A, the username in column B, the meaningful word in column C ("PSYCH", "AMAZON"), and nothing else, since I know the master password by heart.
Later, I got so used to this system that I rarely have to refer to the spreadsheet and no longer enter new lines. If I sign up for, say, INDEED.com, my password would be INDEEDHBhb1463.
I no longer have time to write, nor do I want to overwhelm you with details.
Can you do the following things in the next two days:
DAY 1. In a spreadsheet, record all your recurrent expenses.
DAY 2. In the same spreadsheet, for each recurrent expense record the website, the username, some hint that would be your password.
And that is it. More later when you have laid this groundwork.