Online Bill Payment

[AlmostThere]

I'm with Chris. I don't like the idea of any business automatically taking funds from my accounts.
I can visit the website of the company (electric, gas, credit card etc) and pay my bill from there as a "one time" payment each month.
Another thing I do is 'equal pay'. For instance my gas company can average what my yearly bill would be from the last year's charges, and then use that for an average monthly fee. That way I know exactly what my bill will be each month! Sometimes I even end up with a credit which is nice when I'm having a month of my funds stretching thin.

[Pooker]

I just have one note of warning about automatic bill pay. Since we traveled a lot, my DH had most of our bills on auto pay. Unfortunately, when he died, just about all of his income was on hold until everything got settled. I was frantic trying to stop the auto pays from coming out of a checking account that wasn't getting anything put IN! I spent hours working my way through all those telephone menus and it was the most frustrating and stressful time! Did I mention that our computer decided to give me problems at the same time? So I couldn't get on line and check the balances and deduction dates. It had never entered my head that the death of one of us would create such financial havoc at a very emotional time.

I was able to eventually get everything stopped and decided that I never wanted to do that to my sons. It took weeks to get death certificates and most things can't be settled without the certificate. Even the social security check, which is supposed to be immediately available, wasn't received until the 2nd month! I never had to pay any overdrafts, but it sure came close a couple of times! Even today, if I pay something on line once, some companies don't send a bill the next month and assume I will pay electronically. There's no perfect way because what might be convenient in life could be a nightmare for others in death. Make sure you inform your heirs to watch for this in the event of your death. Leave a list of all bills and phone numbers to notify for them.

Pooker

[oregontocal]

Karen, both Good Sam and Escapees did the same to me with no notice whatsoever. I don't remember signing up to have annual membership automatically deducted, either.

[JanetA]

I guess I'm lucky to be ahead of myself in regard to going full time, but for a couple of years i've used the companies' sites for billpay and it's worked great for me.. I first used my bank but was told by an employee one day, just by accident, that they MAILED (snailmail) the payments so I thought,, how stupid ! I could do that.. and worried about the USPS.. so went to the company's sites and they have NEVER failed me. I do it manually every month, just cuz I'm still @ home and I do draw my acct pretty close to the bone,, Also,, I like the fact that I can schedule it for whenever I want,, or pay it immediatly. I have ONE acct. that doesn't have the advantage of preschedulingas yet, and i've overlooked, a time or 2 and had to pay a late fee, (which ticked me!) but i'm hoping they will eventually get on the bandwagon and have a calendar like the rest of them w/ which to schedule it out.

I see it happening someday that I won't even need paper bills... but for now I don't quite trust my pc so I let them send me bills to the house. When the day comes when I don't have a house,, well, will cross that bridge when it gets here!

Happy trails!

[VickieP]

There are a couple of payments that my bank sends snail mail but the rest is sent electronically. I think one is the water bill going to our small local water district and I think the other is John Deere, not sure about that one, anyway all others are sent electronically and works good for me.

[vblake42]

To pay my regular bills I use the banks online bill pay. To pay for others - such as ebay or amazon.com - I use paypal. Never had a problem with either of them.