This is the story of how I lost my “job” as the family bill-payer, and how my husband switched from paying bills online and over the phone to writing actual paper checks. Which he put in envelopes with actual stamps and return address labels. Return address labels that I got for free from VistaPrint after choosing from nine pages of designs, all I paid was shipping. It had been so long since I wrote a check, I’m surprised our credit union’s fraud department didn’t suspect the checks had been stolen from us.

For the last, oh, 20 years of our relationship, I have been in charge of paying bills for Chris and I. I used to have this obsession with keeping the checkbook in pristine order. So much so that if I messed up a line, I would make a big X through everything and start over on a new page. I am so not kidding.

When I worked at the credit union, I had the perfect setup. I could access my own checking account record from my desktop terminal, so every morning I would meticulously record every cash withdrawal and written check, marking off the ones that had cleared. Once they introduced debit cards, I would go through any receipts in my wallet and record those transactions, marking those off when they posted.  You would have thought that my checkbook WAS my job.

Even after I left the credit union, I kept it up thanks to the home banking site. I had a spiral notebook where I made budgets for each upcoming paycheck, which bill we were going to pay when.  Right up until this past year, in fact, I was doing a wonderful job, if I do say so myself, at keeping our bills paid and our checkbook correct.

And then this past November, everything kind of fell apart.  I posted a request on Help A Reporter Out for products to review for Christmas, and had no idea what I was getting into. I could barely, BARELY keep up with the wave of emails and products and boxes that were piling up, and I just plain stopped paying attention to the mail. Like, at all.

Until one day near the end of January when the phone rang and it was Comcast. We were three payments BEHIND and they were going to shut off our service unless we paid something. I was HORRIFIED.  This was part of my JOB as the stay at home parent, keeping the bills paid. And I had blown it.

Now, you all know I love my husband. You know he works hard at a job he has to commute to, that he comes home and does things like cook dinner or do dishes, that he does all the laundry. You know he is a freaking AWESOME father. And now? He is a freaking AWESOME BILL PAYER.

That’s right. He took away my “job” as keeper of the bills and checkbook. He piled up all the bills, made a list, and instead of paying online and over the phone like I was doing, started writing actual paper CHECKS.  Within three pay periods he had us completely caught up with Comcast and well on our way to being completely caught up with everyone else. He started a spreadsheet on our shared drive and kept track of what he paid, the check number, when it cleared.

In a word, he ROCKED our budget. We are caught up! And I swallowed my pride and admitted I made a big mess of things and have thanked him profusely and repeatedly for pulling us out of what could have been a big disaster. We didn’t have anything shut off or sent to collections or anything.

And so that is the story of how my husband took over bill-paying and went back to the “old fashioned” way of paying them. I don’t have an affiliate account with VistaPrint (although that would be awesome since I love them so much), so I won’t get paid if you click, but take a sec and check out their site. 140 return address labels are free, you just pay shipping! Free is good. Having the bills caught up is EXTRA GOOD.

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