How do you pay your bills?
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| Mon, 05-03-2010 - 6:28pm |
I saw a lot of people in another post have their bills set up on automatic deductions. I was wondering the different ways people send their bills in.
Personally all of my bills go the good old fashioned way. Every week I sit down with my checks and envelopes and write out that weeks bills and then mail them off. now and then I will pay my cell phone bill through the service on my phone. We used to have AT&T and they charged $5 to do this but now that we have Sprint I feel like I'm getting this huge savigns because they don't charge for the phone payment.
I snail mail my bills because thats the way I learned to do it from watching my parents. That and I kind of get a nice feeling of satisfaction when I see that stack off bills go off into bill land and I know that I'm taking care of my obligations. It feels like tangible evdience that I'm doing the right thing you know?
Anyway, what is your preferred method of bill payment and why?


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Great post, Stephanie.
My mortgage is set up to automatically debit my account on the 1st of each month.
Robyn CL- Debt Support Group
I think that for the most part my bills are very flexable and that is why I don't worry about how long it will take for something to arrive. If the checks didn't cash within 10 days after being sent then I would
That's great, and I'm glad that works for you.
Robyn CL- Debt Support Group
I pay my bills on-line through my bank account. I use to do it the old fashion way but I switched about 2 years ago and have 0 regrets. We also pay my DH student loans, car payment and gym membership
Liz
student loan paid off 2010
Bathroom remodel loan paid off 2013
Pending Car loan to be paid by the end of 2014!!!!!
Our mortgages, RV and car payment are automatically taken out of bank account.
All our other bills we pay online, through our bank accounts. One time last summer we forgot to pay our internet bill before we left for weeks, so by the time we got back we had to actually go into the office to pay. It was strange for me!
I lived in the states in 2004 and was very surprised at how far "behind" the technology was for paying online, and how much cheques (checks) were used. I'd been paying bills online since at least 2000, and I was only 19 then! I honestly couldn't imagine mailing cheques for anything anymore. I don't remember the last time I bought stamps except for Christmas cards! LOL
I would like to get to the point that all the bills are on PAD or pre-auth'd on a CC then one payment can be made on that CC every month. But we are still juggling, always juggling whether our house or our rental utilities should be paid in full each month, it is so ridiculous. Hopefully one day, they will all come out of my bank automatically & I can not worry about paying them at all!
~ Mom to 5 ~
I do snail mail for most things.
I pay all of my bills online through my bank account. I do NOT have anything set up to be automatically deducted. I had only have a couple of bills to pay each month (cell phone and mastercard) so I pay them myself online and I write down the confirmation reference number for each one each time.
I used to have my car insurance on a monthly payment plan but I managed to bounce the payment one time. Ever since I have never done automatic payments. I do them all myself so I KNOW the money is in the account and then it goes automatically so I can't bounce a cheque or an automatic debit.
I also like to write the reference numbers down. Many years ago (mid-1990s) I used to pay my bills through the ATM (before online banking, but I never used cheques) I paid my phone bill and it wasn't credited to my next bill. I called the bank to find out and the woman was really rude, pretty much told me "sure you paid that..." but she didn't believe me. I obsessively kept all my bank machine receipts and having that receipt from the machine with the machine and transaction codes was the only way I could prove that I had paid it. I got the satisfaction of proving the rude bank rep wrong (she treated me like I was trying to scam a payment) and also the relief of not having to pay the bill twice, because I was a student at the time and that would have been my grocery fund. So I like online payments that I do myself so I know there is money in the account when I make the payments, and so I can write the confirmation of payment numbers down too.
I use direct debit (automatic draft) for my power bill and bank loan payment. I don't like this payment method, as I saw my mother have too many problems with it when I was a child. I only pay the power this way as I pay the same every week and get the prompt payment discount even when the bill hasn't been paid in full by those weekly payments (which often happens in winter).
Medical costs are paid on the day when I can, otherwise I go into the doctors office to pay them.
Everything else is paid online through my bank. This is my preferred method of payment.
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