Reading through this thread has left me with a question I’ve been meaning to ask but I’ll put it in another thread (about future information planning.)
1 Like
I get 10% discount on my phone bill if do auto pay. Is it worth giving out the bank routing number and account number? I know they are displayed on the check.
Only if you get to approve each charge in advance, it’s very hard to get money back if you allow a company to take it from your account in advance when they think an amount is due. Your ability to disagree with a charge gets long and complicated when you have to ask for money back.
3 Likes
Chase will send a paper check to ANYONE. If you have a chase account you do NOT need to write the check or mail it. Maybe other banks do also?
1 Like
Automatic payments/auto draft on everything.
Recently, I have found it a pain to set some of them up. It is like they are hoping for late payments. I wish they would make that easier with car loans. Bank of America was a nightmare to get set up and I still can not see that loan in with other accounts we have when logging in.
I have also found the features in apps vs. website portals vary. Some have more info in the apps, some you need to login to the website to update things.
1 Like
The only “auto” autopay I have is the “pay by plate”’toll account just because I don’t want to glue a transponder to my windshield. It replenishes when the value goes below a certain amount. The rest get paid by credit card (anything via Paymentus) or by ACH, like semi annual property tax or HOA fees. Most utilities here allow guest pay without creating an account, and all doctors have some sort of online bill pay. I just looked- the last checks I wrote were gifts to kids. 
2 Likes
I have a couple of autopay via credit cards, but mostly pay via online banking. I do not like autodraft from my checking account for some of the reasons stated above.
I do set up condo fee recurring payments for the year from my checking account. They stop after the December payment and then I set up the next year’s with he new fee.
My mortgage is with the same credit union as the rest of my banking and that is on autodraft.
That’s what I do. I have my bank send a paper check. I schedule it for the year and forget about it. It works as simple as autopay except I have the control over the payment. I’d just continue to do that had they not increased the bill for not doing the autopay.
1 Like
Yes, USAA does as well.
1 Like
I have most things set to autopay. I do use my checking account, but I figure that if I sent a check like old days, they’d still have the account and routing numbers anyway on the checks. As far as errant charges, all my utilities send an email with amount and usage way ahead of time, so if there were ever an error, I could deal with it. I flagged a wrong charge on my Verizon last year, and they took it off right away, and additionally offered me a ten dollar a month rebate, and free MAX, both for a year. Which was nice!
My major exception is credit card bills; I do want to give them a look over, as I always pay the total online as soon as I get notification. (My basic rule is that anything I need to pay manually, do it the minute the email shows up, even if not due for another few weeks. So I don’t miss one.)
I pay property taxes quarterly for two houses through their portals using echecks. I also do that with one water bill; the other offers autopay.
All of our medical providers have online payment portals except dentist, but I can use credit card for them at POS.
Have to dig around the desk for checks the one or two times a year I need one.
3 Likes
We don’t write many paper checks (some months none). I was really pleased when our lawn guy switched from “check under the doormat (in a ziplock)” method to Venmo. Now my husband sweats all that, and I just note one monthly total in the checkbook register.
And I’m one who still does reconcile the checkbook monthly. It’s just a good way to keep a pulse on things, and for past 10+ years it’s been a good opportunity to calculate/log total monthly Outflow (cash + checks + w/d autopays + Visa)
Recently, our mailbox was vandalized, so we’ve been having to get mail directly at the post office for the last couple months. We found it easier to just have all of our bills emailed to us every month, and use autopay for the payment.
If you don’t like the idea of some company reaching in and taking your payment, there’s another option. Most banks have bill pay. You can setup all of your bills and utilities on your bank website, and the bank will send the payment directly.
4 Likes
Yes. It seems like some people don’t understand the difference between a bill pay service on their bank website/app and autopay.
1 Like
My “automatic” payments over the years have been a combo of “push” (set up at bank) and “pull”. Currently I think they are all “pull”. Visa credit card bill is our jumbo monthly obligation - I do that manually each month, but online at Chase site.
My monthly “checkbook reconciliation” is more about reviewing all those things than the actual balance calculations (though I still do that old fashioned tradition).
Last year I did something that is a bit of a nuisance but also seems a good precaution. All Visa autopays and other transactions over a clip level ($25?) and international charges generate an email notification. In other words, if fraud I’ll know about it almost immediately.
2 Likes
I get texts for every single credit card transaction. It is very helpful.
3 Likes
I meant to reply to this earlier. If you can set it lower than $25, do so. Some of my cards let me do it for every transaction. Some make me set a threshold. But scammers often ding a credit card with a couple of small charges (< $10) before starting the bigger ones. Ask me how I know… Before cell phones and apps, this used to happen to me all the time. It’s been a night and day difference once these notifications became available. The card that makes me set a threshold, I have it set to $1.00
4 Likes
I do not provide CC at my medical providers. I have found many erroneous billings, and I do not want them to automatically charge my card when the payment is due. A lot of times it is due to their using wrong medical code. If they have money then they would have a lot less incentive to refile corrected claims.
4 Likes
I don’t use credit cards for any medical things either. There have been mistakes, and it’s almost impossible to get money back that was wrongly paid.
1 Like
Speaking of balancing a checkbook … I used to do it the old way for years and years and years.
Then I realized I could log into my account at any time and have an updated accounting, but still on paper. I do it maybe once a week and then draw a line in the ledger where I know it’s balanced. I still have a checkbook and paper checks where I enter things as they come through electronically, but for me it is easier to check online once a week versus once a month with a statement (that I am notified is available).
4 Likes
I pay for everything I can with a credit card as long as there is no fee to do so (I have a points/miles hobby to feed), and try to set things up for auto-pay. The rest I have debited from my checking account. I have one annual expense that requires a check (can’t be one generated from online bill pay, either, I have to physically give it to the recipient), but other than that I haven’t written an actual check for anything other than gifts in many years.
3 Likes