The dates India forgets: a year of dues, and how to stop forgetting them

Most of a month's money in India is a date rather than a decision. The card is due on the 18th, the EMI goes on the 5th, the SIP on the 10th, the premium in March, the school fee each term, the tax in four instalments. None of it is hard. All of it is easy to forget, and forgetting is what costs.

What comes round every month

• Credit card due date. The bill is generated on a fixed day and the payment is due about twenty days later. Paying after it means interest on the whole statement, not just the unpaid part.
• Loan EMI. A fixed debit on a fixed day. The expensive mistake is not the EMI itself but a debit that bounces because the account was short that morning.
• SIP. Same shape as an EMI, same failure: the money has to be in the account the day before, not the day of.
• Rent, electricity, mobile, broadband. Small, regular, and the ones most often paid late simply because nothing announced them.

What comes round every quarter

Advance tax, if your tax for the year after deductions crosses the threshold, is paid in four instalments: by 15 June, 15 September, 15 December and 15 March, as a rising share of the year's estimate. Missing one does not fail anything loudly. It adds interest at the end, quietly, which is the worst kind of reminder.

What comes round every year

• Insurance premiums. Life, health, motor. Each has a renewal date and most have a grace period, and a lapsed health policy is the one you discover at the hospital desk.
• School fees. Per term, on a schedule the school sets and does not remind you about twice.
• The income tax return. The due date for an individual without an audit requirement is normally 31 July, and it has been extended in some years, so check the current year's date rather than assuming. The filing itself takes an hour; gathering the documents is what takes the week.

The one habit

Every one of these dates is knowable in January. The habit that works is not discipline but a list: write each due down once, with how often it repeats and how many days of warning you want, and let something else remember. The warning matters more than the date. A reminder on the day of an EMI is too late to move money; a reminder three days before is not.

How EasyDooo does it

Bills and dues live on the Budget page. Each one can start from a template: credit card, loan EMI, SIP, subscription, insurance, electricity, mobile or broadband, rent, school fees, advance tax, income tax return. The template fills in how often it repeats and when to remind you. Every due keeps a task in Tasks that reminds you ahead of the date, in the one daily reminder EasyDooo sends as a push notification and an email, counted in your own time zone.

• An EMI or SIP can carry a reminder to fund the account a few days before the debit.
• A subscription can record when its free trial ends, with a reminder two days before.
• The income tax return template carries a checklist of documents to gather, added as steps to each year's task.
• Mark a due Paid and the expense is recorded in Budget against its category and what you paid from, and the next due is scheduled.
• Every bill shows what it costs a year, so the annual total is a number you have seen, not one that arrives.

Bills and dues are part of Budget, which is on the Pro and Max plans. On the Free plan, a task with Remind me before does the reminding half of the job for any date you like.