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Financial literacy · a life skill

Simple Bill Calendars

every due date, in one place

Most people learn to pay on time the expensive way: a late fee stings, and for a while they're careful. Then the sting fades and the next one arrives. A bill calendar does the remembering instead. Every due date goes on the calendar you already open, with a reminder a few days ahead, so nothing depends on how recently you were caught out.

  • Easy
  • Medium impact
  • Learn it: 1 week
  • Twenty minutes to set up
how fast a late fee's lesson fades
The weight a paid late fee still carries on paying late again, by months since it was paid Twelve bars, one for each month since the fee. Paid last month counts as 100. The weight falls by about a fifth each month: about 33 after six months, and about 9 after a year. WEIGHT A LATE FEE STILL CARRIES · LAST MONTH = 100 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 100 33 9 months since the fee was paid After a year, less than a tenth of the lesson is left.

Agarwal, Driscoll, Gabaix & Laibson (2008), from four million monthly statements at one US card issuer. In their model, a late fee's pull falls by about a fifth every month.

The method

Every due date on one calendar, with a warning.

  1. Gather every bill

    Go through two months of bank and card statements and list anything that leaves on a date: rent, cards, phone, energy, subscriptions. Then think of the yearly ones, which never show up in two months.

  2. Write the due date, not the usual one

    The date the bill is due, from the bill itself. A payment that usually goes out on the 3rd is late if it's due on the 1st.

  3. Use the calendar you already open

    Your phone calendar, not a new app or a spreadsheet you'll forget. A due date only helps where you'll see it.

  4. Set a warning ahead of each

    Two or three days before the due date: enough time to move money or pay by hand if something has changed.

  5. Look once a month

    Ten minutes on the 1st: what's due this month, which week is heaviest, and whether any new bill has crept in.

    Gather the bills, use the due dates, put them where you look, warn ahead, look monthly.

Example: Jun pays rent on the 1st, a card on the 22nd and four smaller bills in between, plus car insurance once a year in March. They paid a late fee in the spring when the card bill slipped past, and were careful for a month or two. Now all seven bills sit in their phone calendar, each with a warning three days ahead.

The bill calendar

List your bills, see the month, take it with you.

1 · Your bills

No bills yet. Add the first one below, or show an example.

2 · Add a bill

3 · The warning

A due date on a weekend or holiday may need paying earlier. Check each bill's own terms.

4 · The month

MonTueWedThuFriSatSun

    5 · Put it in your calendar

    One file with every bill, each repeating on its due day with its warning set. It opens in Apple Calendar, Outlook and most calendar apps. Some apps drop warnings when they import, so open one bill afterwards and check.

    Your bills are kept only in this browser, and the calendar file is made on this page. Nothing is sent anywhere.

    The research behind it

    People learn to pay on time by paying fees.

    Sumit Agarwal, John Driscoll, Xavier Gabaix and David Laibson followed about 128,000 credit card accounts at one large US bank from 2002 to 2004: four million monthly statements. They looked at three fees that a little attention avoids: paying late, going over the limit, and taking cash on the card. A late fee was $30 or $35.

    People did get better. In the first four years of an account, the share of months with a late fee fell from 36% to 8%, and the other two fees fell much the same way. What taught them was mostly the fees themselves: paying one last month went with a 40% lower chance of paying one this month.

    Share of months in which an account paid each fee, when new and four years in: late fee 36% to 8%, cash advance fee 57% to 13%, over limit fee 17% to 5%. MONTHS WITH THE FEE · NEW ACCOUNT VS 4 YEARS IN Late fee 36% new 8% 4 years in Cash advance fee 57% new 13% 4 years in Over limit fee 17% new 5% 4 years in 0% 20% 40% 60%
    Agarwal et al. (2008), fitted values with the other factors held at their averages. Every fee became rarer as people learned.

    But the lesson didn't keep. In their model, a late fee's pull on the next month fell by about a fifth each month, so a fee paid a year ago carried less than a tenth of the weight of one paid last month. As old fees faded, people slipped back, and some paid again to relearn what they'd known. New accounts paid about $15 a month in these fees at the start.

    A calendar is a cheaper teacher. It warns you every month, whether or not you were caught out recently, and it doesn't charge for the lesson. That last step is ours: the study measured fees and learning, not calendars, and it covers one US bank's cards in the 2000s.

    Fees a new account paid in an average month: $6.65 in cash advance fees, $5.63 in late fees, $2.46 in over limit fees, about $15 in all. FEES A NEW ACCOUNT PAID IN AN AVERAGE MONTH Cash advance fees $6.65 Late fees $5.63 Over limit fees $2.46 $0 $2 $4 $6 $8
    Agarwal et al. (2008), at account opening. Late fees, in brick, are the ones a calendar can prevent. These leave out interest and the higher rates a late payment can trigger, so the true cost was larger.

    The idea

    Why it works.

    Bills are spread across the month, and some come once a year, so memory is the wrong place to keep them. Memory is sharpest just after a mistake and fades from there, which is exactly when the next due date slips.

    A calendar doesn't fade. Once each due date is there with a warning ahead of it, paying on time stops depending on how recently you were caught. The monthly look keeps the list honest as bills come and go.

    When it goes wrong

    Habits that help.

    • The yearly ones bite. Insurance, a licence, an annual subscription: they're the bills you forget, because you've only seen them once. Add them first.
    • Give the warning room. A reminder on the day leaves no time to move money. Two or three days ahead does.
    • Add a bill the day you sign up. A new subscription or contract goes on the calendar before the first payment, not after it.
    • Watch the heavy week. If most bills land in one week, that week needs the money in place. Some providers will move a due date if you ask.

    Go deeper

    Keep going.

    Resources

    Practise this in HourLife.

    In Finances: Subscription calendar. Log your money once a month, set a monthly budget and track spending by category, and keep every subscription and its charges in one list.

    Download on the App Store Download on the Mac App Store How Finances works in HourLife