Many of our bills are paid automatically online. However, we still get paper bills in addition for many as a way to see the usage (such at electric, gas and water) and post in a ledger. I enter all bills in a ledger as well as all credit card transaction about twice a month. This is not the part I want to change in our lives as I find that actually writing down and using old fashion math keeps things clear. It also helps me track any rare mistakes that have been charged.
The part of bill paying I want to change is receiving the paper bills. Having the bill sent to our email seems a little iffy to me. I could see the occasional miss with all of the various emails that come in daily including constant new junk mail that has to be purged no matter what we do. We could set up a new email just for this reason. That seems somewhat laborious but once done would be done.
CC is a wealth of information so thought I would ask here for systems that you find work well.
Thanks!
I have all bills/remi come into my personal email (Would consider having a separate email so both could access). Most emails are more a reminder that a bill is due (and link to their site)
I have a spreadsheet that lists the bills and the due dates and websites which is shared with spouse in case they need to take over. This way bills don’t get missed based on email or paper bill getting lost.
Based on the bill due date twice a month I go through and pay the bills that are coming due. I prefer to go to the site, review billing, and push payment - rather than give blanket permission for company to reach into my bank account.
How about skipping statements all together whether electronic or snail mail? You can still check your transactions online. Put a reminder on your calendar or phone every two weeks if that helps and just sign into your online account.
I also prefer an electronic spreadsheet over paper and pen but that’s a stylistic difference. I just find it easier to read, calculate, and also organize.
The only bill that I set up to pay automatically is the water and sewer bill. I do receive a paper statement for that, about one month before the due date (paid quarterly), and I appreciate that, because seeing that was how I realized I had a major water leak.
I receive email notifications for most bills that I pay online (two credit cards, phone and internet, electricity, house and auto insurance). I sometimes, but not always, schedule payment when I receive the email. I almost always schedule the payment to be made on the due date or the day before the due date.
For regular bills, I have my credit card information saved. For my credit cards, I have my bank account information saved.
I have paper statements mailed to us. Auto bill payments for cell, electric, and water/sewer. I pay quarterly for cable/Internet/landline (one company). Things don’t change much—we just eyeball. Most utilities have a graph of last 12 months of use, so we can tell when it’s wildly different.
When cable bill goes up, i call and ask for a better deal or say we will be cancelling. It works ok. We have always gotten a better deal.
It is not hard at all to set up a separate email account. I have one from work, another that I use for friends, a third that I use for posting [like here] that I can walk away from without a backward look if it starts to get too much spam, and, yes, a fourth for bills. It’s just an internet filing cabinet – and the bills are always available for reference.
I love that in gmail, all junk email goes to other tabs (social and promotions, primarily). My bills go to “Updates” which is where I look for important computer generated responses --basically things like bills, order acknowledgements, writing submission responses, etc. Primary email is for personal stuff.
The Social and Promotions tabs can fill up with tons of junk that I cheerfully ignore, and clean out every few months.
But the part I’m not clear on is the need for paper bills to see the entire account. All that information is available online at every bill I pay. I often click on usage to track trends. It just seems so much simpler than dealing with all that paper, but that’s just me.
I think I got rid of this tab and that got rid of ads on Gmail. Now the social stuff is in my main inbox, but I’d rather deal with that than have any ads visible ever.
I have autopay for a few things, but not credit cards with their varying amounts due. I’m having trouble lately with my Costco Citi card - I can’t pay the bill using Firefox. They say I should switch to Chrome. I’ve told them that I will cancel the card in three months if it still doesn’t work on Firefox. I’m not jumping through hoops for online bill pay! I cancelled a Home Depot credit card a couple of years ago for that reason. It was just needlessly complicated to pay.
We created an email account specifically for bills and finance. It took awhile for me to remember to check that account, and there’s really no way for me to know if my H has seen a specific email unless I ask, but so far it is working. It’s definitely harder for me to check credit card charges online, but I’m getting used to it. All bills are paid automatically with email notices first saying that our bill can be seen online, then another one reminding us of the date our account will be debited, then a third saying our bill was paid. So emails definitely pile up. Unless there’s an unusually large credit card bill, we have a large enough balance in our checking account to cover our charges. We will have to be extra vigilant when my H retires at the end of this year and his paychecks end. Finances will be trickier to stay on top of then.
The only bills that still come in the mail and are not paid automatically are for car registration and property taxes, and from our local medical center. I would never give them our bank account info as there always seem to be billing errors, some of which take a very long time to correct (e.g. medical coding errors).
I get all my bills sent to my email addy. I then put them in a bills due folder. I pay all my bills for the month with H’s 1st paycheck. This month it was today. Once I get a payment received email, I put that email in a bills paid folder. I only use one CC so I check the transactions about once a week so I can catch if something is amiss quickly.
Only auto pay linked to my checking account is for car & homeowners ins. I deduct that amount in my check book the day I pay all the bills. Subscriptions like Netflix, NYT, etc., is linked to my CC. Mortgage is deducted directly from H’s paycheck twice a month as is his car payment.
My prop taxes and water bills are mailed out by my town and I pay both those by check.
I still get bills by snail mail. I refuse to put most bills on autopay. I like to maintain control. I pay almost all my bills online with credit cards, and pay my credit card bills with online banking. I keep my own spreadsheet with dates and amounts paid for each category.
@NJres --I’m just curious why you still get them snail mail but pay them online. It seems like it would cut out a step, and paper, to get the email notification and then pay online. It’s the same amount of control either way. I also pay very few on autopay. I like to check the charges first. Not criticizing, just curious.
Clark Howard, who has a lot of good advice on a lot of subjects, recommends always keeping paper copies of bills, since they may not always be available on line and you might need them for an audit or return or something.
IF you need them for an audit, and IF the bill is not available online, you can get a copy from the creditor.
The effort I put into saving paper is proportional to the likelihood that I will ever need it again. April’s gas bill? Chances I’ll ever need a paper copy again in my life are essentially nil. Zero effort into keeping and filing.
My 2015 tax return? Yeah, that I keep. Seven years for tax returns.
I don’t get paper bills any more. Nor do I receive the bill via email. I get an email notification when the bill is available for the new billing period. The notification includes the amount due and due date. I enter it on my Google calendar in green (for money). When the due date arrives, I go to the website of the creditor and pay the bill online. Then I mark it paid on my calendar.
I also keep an Excel spreadsheet of all our creditors (Verizon, gas, elec, water, tuition, rent for kids in college, mortgage, car payment, credit cards, etc.) and the due dates (or range of due dates for the ones that differ each month).
I have been paying my bills online for years and the process is very much automated. The bank even allows a setup where some very common bills can be programmed to be delivered to the bank electronically and paid automatically - this includes some credit card and utility bills.
Also, for any bills that are identical each month – such as my mortgage or paying the gardener – those are set up to go out automatically with no intervention at all from me. Just every month, first day of the month, mortgage is paid, in full, on time.
As for bills that vary and can’t set up the automatic-to-bank billing, I have set up an automatic “placeholder” payment with my bank – I pretty much know when to expect the emailed statement, but if I miss seeing it, then I will be reminded when I browse the list of scheduled payments. The scheduled payment is always enough to meet minimum payment requirements… so I’ll never end up with late charges, even though if I miss correcting things in time I could end up being charged some interest on my credit card because I didn’t pay it in full. (But that really doesn’t happen – I know what my credit cards are and when payments are due).
The only thing I have to do is to check my bank balance regularly so I know that there is money there to cover whatever is coming in…but the bank also has a system that can send me emails for a low balance alert, or also send me emails when payments over a certain amount out – so I’d be alerted if anything really strange happened.
I’d just add that wherever possible, I try to set up autopay directly with the company, and bill to a cash-back credit card. All my insurance premiums are paid that way. So that takes care of the majority of the bills, plus the more bills I put onto that system the more money I get back. So mostly on the banking end of things I’m paying the credit cards, rather than directly paying most of my creditors.
“Clark Howard, who has a lot of good advice on a lot of subjects, recommends always keeping paper copies of bills, since they may not always be available on line and you might need them for an audit or return or something.”
Personally I think that’s terrible advice and the kind of thinking that keeps people needlessly drowning in paper. As Brantley said the chances of you needing any bill AND it not being available from any source are near zero.
All bills are paperless here. I get an email that the statement is ready and also have reminders on my calendar and keep a spreadsheet.
Like @calmom, we set up autopay utilities, insurance, gym memberships, etc. to charge a cash back credit card. That card is only used for autopays and does not leave the house or get used online. We learned to do this after a few security breaches where we were issued new cards and had to notify all the autopays again…and again. I then pay any stragglers and the credit cards in full each month through our bank’s bill pay service.