Paying Bills and Saving Money

I have bpay set up for some of my regular bills (electricity, internet). I work out roughly how much it costs per fortnight, then that amount gets paid directly each fortnight so I’m mostly in credit and may only need to pay a small amount when the bill comes in. Any bills that are monthly direct debits (private health, phones, insurances) I split the bill in half, then move that amount to a separate account and move it into my everyday account on the day the bill is due to be paid. Then I have several ING accounts, one for general savings, one for car related expenses (rego, services), as well as savings for my boys. These accounts have a set amount that goes into them fortnightly. Anything left in my everyday account after all that has been paid/transferred is what is left for food, petrol and incidentals. It’s not perfect, and sometimes I have to dip into the bill accounts if something unexpected crops up, but it’s been working for me for about 8 years now.

Start a bank account with a different bank. Never get a key card or internet banking. Have ALL of your money go into this account and have the bank set up an automatic regular transfer every fortnight to your usual bank account. You get paid $1700 so if you work out all your expenses and what you can live off a week then have that transferred to you. Even if you're transferring $1600 a fortnight that's still leaving $100 in the other account and it builds up over time. Have your tax returns, bonuses, Centrelink, out of the blue money, everything going into that account with limited access while living off the transferred amount. You can still access it by going into the bank but that comes with a bit of planning and time these days so it takes away the quick decision withdrawals. You can't see what's in there either until you get a statement or go into the bank so it takes the temptation away. This is how I do it because I'm really bad at living below my means. I can survive well on a low income I've done it a few times now but as soon as I am earning more I'm spending more! So only giving myself a certain amount every week works well for me.

The Barefoot Investor is a great book to read to help with this. It’s easy to read and straightforward. The library usually has a copy if you haven’t the money to purchase your own copy, though it’s a good investment to do so.
Years ago, similar to what has already been suggested, I started accruing for my bills gradually as well as putting in place savings, but I did use savings to top up the payment of the bills until I was in a position to have the money outright for bills.
It took me about 18 months to two years to eventually get in front and then I never looked back. And this is an important thing to note - it didn’t happen overnight; it took time. And at times it did feel like I was going backwards and not getting ahead, particularly in regards to saving, which is why it is important to realise that it might take a couple of years.
Next, I budgeted. We got paid monthly (so hard to manage being paid once a month!) and that money went into an account that was hard to get at. Then I paid ourselves weekly from that acct into a working acct that I then could access easily. I worked out what I needed to put aside each week for, say, my electricity bill, then put that amount (maybe $10 a week back then) into a separate account (actually tbh I was so old fashioned and needed to learn to be dedicated with the $19k nett we had coming in annually as income for two people, that I used an actual envelope system in a shoe box in a cupboard. I’d go to the bank and get out exactly what my budget dictated, right down to the $0.50 that I worked out I needed for a particular bill, and popped it into an appropriately marked envelop (electricity, groceries, gas, rego, insurance, fuel, etc, every expense had its own envelope) and paid everything by cash. Once it was a habit and I’d adjusted, I started keeping the money in the bank in different accounts and used a spreadsheet to ‘envelope’ my money; I also found I was able to manipulate the money to accomodate other expenses that cropped up, so if I had a low spending grocery week and had money left in the envelope, I either left it there for more groceries next time, or popped it into a ‘savings envelope’ and used that to buy a pair of shoes/clothes/whatever, or have a birthday dinner, etc, or top up another bill payment in order to not touch savings. As another example, some electricity bills were lower than others so after a cycle or two, I might take some of the extra money that had accrued and allocated it elsewhere. We did go without a lot those first couple of years in order to get ahead and ate basic meals breakfast/lunch & dinner, but it was probably a good lesson in learning to be savvy).
When I first started accruing, I maybe had only half saved, say, for the electricity bill when it came in, so I took that money and then topped up from my savings to pay the bill. Then the whole next cycle was completely put aside so when the next electricity bill came in I didn’t have to touch my savings. I just kept doing that with all my bills until such time as I had all the money accrued for each bill. I still operate like that to this day but have the money sitting as a redraw option on my home loan and use a credit card to pay for everything with an amount coming from redraw monthly to do an automatic credit card clearance.
Once I was in the habit I found it easy to stay dedicated and we never seem to spend outside of our budget - we have no need to. And we don’t go without the luxuries, though we would axe them it we have to, to have money for other budgeted bills. I do regular adjustments of the budget to take into account the price of, say, fuel going up; the downside to this is that it comes from our savings. If one of us get a payrise or a tax return, that extra goes straight into the savings. We run a few different types of savings, mind. We have money that gets saved for renovations. We have money saved for just in case. We have money saved for a holiday. We have saved and bought cars outright. But I/we (hubby has no choice, lol) didn’t get here overnight. I’ve been following this system since I was 20 and I’m now early 50s and we are well placed. All the best for your future, hope this helps somewhat.

You need to over estimate your monthly bills.
Quick example budget you get $4000 a month
Lets says yours bills are
gas, electric, internet, phone, water
Let’s say these come to $500 a month
Food is $800 a month
Rent/mortgage $1400
Entertainment $200 a month
Car expenses (service, rego, petrol) $200
You will have put away $3100 towards essentials
You can save $500 with a bit left in the account for unexpected bills.
If a bill comes to less than expected, keep the extra as bill money to pay something else incase something else is more expensive

I budget my bills into my weekly spend. So instead of everything extra going into savings. I would pay so much to rent, electricity, phone/internet, car insurance etc and what ever was left after paying the man was left for savings. I had two savings accounts one for “emergencies” and one for “wants”