Independence is paying your first bill on time without anyone reminding you.

Independence is less a feeling than a record of small things handled on time. A bill paid without a reminder is one entry in that record, and it counts precisely because nobody was watching, which means nothing outside you made it happen. That is the whole mechanism: responsibility moving, slowly, from somebody else’s memory into your own.

Set up the next one yourself. Put the date in your phone, or automate it, and treat the reminder as scaffolding rather than cheating. The aim is not to be impressive about it. The aim is that it is simply done, every time, by you.