How I Pay Bills

[itsmejan]

I keep all my bills in a clear plastic storage box. as soon as the bill arrives i open it ,write date due and minumum payment on the outside. then I place them in chronological order,earliest due is first in box so it is visible through front of box. I don,t pay minimum , but this is helpful to me as we live on a disability income. Jan
P.S.In March my hubby was hospitalized in critical condition and I never left his side. Now I'm paying dearly ,but I would't change how I did things.

[terry1156]

A convenient way to store them. I like the clear plastic idea so that you can easily see the one that needs to be paid next.

I'm sorry to hear about your husband

[Tree0164]

I do all of my bills online through my online banking. I have everything except for my mortgage that I do on the 20th of the money.

My mortgage goes out the 1st of the month.


It makes it easy for me to keep track. I still get paper bills.

[blowmewell]

HEllo everyone,
My bank has been suck with paying my bills,Pls does anyone know the website that pay bills online.I write so many checks for payment both for my Utility and individual paymet.I will be glad if i get a website that issues checks or bill payment to individuals and for my utility bills online.
Pls help about this.Am worried of stolen or lost checks posted by mail.

[PrincessPerky]

Almost all of mine are taken out automatically. I contacted each company one by one and asked them to do that, some had the information on the back of the bill.

That way it doesn't come out early, and when BBY3 is here I can survive without late fees without looking at the bills for weeks at a time. I write down what they took out when they mail me the bill, so I often have much more in my account than I have written down, which is a good thing for an absentminded person like me .

I also have 1000 in the checking account, that I 'lost' the 1 too, leaving me with a nice safe cushion which I hope not to use, but most all of my bills come out the begining of the month, and they add up to over DHs first paycheck, so if I forget to leave some from the previous check I am in trouble..

[TBH]

Originally Posted by blowmewell

HEllo everyone,
My bank has been suck with paying my bills,Pls does anyone know the website that pay bills online.I write so many checks for payment both for my Utility and individual paymet.I will be glad if i get a website that issues checks or bill payment to individuals and for my utility bills online.
Pls help about this.Am worried of stolen or lost checks posted by mail.

I use mycheckfree.com to pay some of my bills. Others I pay directly on the company's website. I still have 2 or 3 bills that don't have online access, which drives me crazy. What is this, the dark ages? My mortgage, especially, I am anxious to pay online. They will hopefully have that capability by year end.

You can pay individuals via PayPal if they have a PayPal account.

My bank (Wachovia) also has an online billpay service for free but it's clunky so I don't use it very much.

[marglo]

Most of our bills are either auto paid from our checking account, or auto paid onto a credit card. We did this because we travel quite a bit and this way we don't have to worry about it. We just check mvelopes every few days to make sure we are still on track. Our income is auto deposited also. We have a few bills that I pay using Mvelopes online BillPay.

[Armywife]

I've been using a reward credit card to pay some bills, then pay that bill with the money I have set aside- that way I get points and fix my credit up at the same time. As for the bigger bills, I opened up a citibank account which now has a rewards program that gives pretty cool prizes just for being a customer (odd, but interesting nonetheless

[blowmewell]

Hello.Thanks for your responseCAn you tell me if Mvelopes pay individual bills or maybe there are other website that help with individual payments not utility.You know what i mean ......From you Gardner to your cook.
I will simply appreciate alot.

[jmjj215]

The downside of mvelopes is the hefty monthly cost

[marglo]

Mvelopes is a budgeting system where all transactions from all your online accounts..and most banks/credit card companies are online these days are automatically downloaded into your budget. The name comes from the fact that virtual envelopes are used for each category. Yes there is a fee but it is cheaper if you can pay it for a year. However, I have always paid by the month unfortunately. I won a free year too by telling them about our experience with it! I do not think I will feel so much need of it after I get our finances more simplied and have fewer accts but for now I really like it. I have found another budgeting software that I intend to use which is very simple and has some features I like that even Mvelopes doesn't have and I intend to switch to it after I get things simplified.

To get to your questions though: Mvelopes, the budgeting system, does not pay your bills but they also have Mvelopes BillPay which you can use to pay bills. This is included in the fee and it works quite well. Most of our bills are paid by auto payment either from our checking or to a credit card, but for those few that are not, I do use Mvelopes Billpay.

[dolfinrose]

We pay either auto payments, or our banks billpay, which I setup a month in advance.

[cheapbastard]

First, we see if we can pay a bill with the credit card. Second, we will pay our bills online. As soon as a bill comes in I go online and set the money to come out the day before the bill is due. Lastly, if either of the two options above are unavailable we pay by cheque.

[sweeps]

I also use a rewards credit card whenever possible. Phone bills and cable bills are particular good for that. After that I use online bill pay through my bank. If the company (or person) doesn't accept electronic payments, my bank sends them a check.

Using online bill pay allows you to schedule your payment as late as possible so you can earn just a tad more interest.

[Bluezy]

All our bills are posted online with the exception of the storage payment. I go directly to the card's website and make the payment through the card site, not through online bill pay service.

So far I have had no problems posting bills online

[PRICEPLUS]

Direct deposit of checks into bank. Automatic payments into savings and investment accounts. I pay all other bills as they come in by snail mail!

[JBinKC]

I pay as many bills with a credit card as long as they don't add a surcharge. Those who charge a fee those bills are automatically taken out of my checking account on the due date. It saves on postage costs and prevents you to forget paying a bill on time.

[EHadden]

I'm sure that my simplistic method of paying bills doesn't equate with some of your ideas, but I'm throwing it out here as an idea...my wife and I are paid twice a month (she on the 5th and 20th and me on the 15th and 30th (or last day)). I set up 4 manilla folders with sheets of paper stapled onto them. Each pay period has it's own certain bills that correspond to that particular paycheck. When a bill arrives, it goes into its appropriate folder and sits until payday.

I also have a spreadsheet that lists all of our bills and their due dates, so that I could determine the appropriate pay date to pay that bill from so that it will not be paid late. I also use National City online bill pay and have not one single complaint about it. I have to allow a window of 7-10 days for the bill to make it to the company, but it usually makes it in about 4, unless I process bills on a Sunday. I have found that the only things I write checks for now are irregular expenses at work (social dues, fund-raisers for someone's kid, etc.) and for local utility bills that are easier paid by a bill drop off on my way to work.

I also download all my financial information into Quicken, which I love, because it is helping me to keep track of my financial goals. The biggest one was to cut our debt by 15% this year, as of today, it has been cut by nearly 40%.

[niki_the_tiger]

My husband gets paid every two weeks, which we get direct deposited. I have a calendar that I write all our bills on (on their due dates). Every payday, I pay all the bills that are due for that pay period. I pay most of them online, but there's a few, like our local electric company and our mortgage and rubbish removal, that I still have to send checks to.

[jhd815]

I organize my bills by the due date when I receive them and then twice a month I use my bank's online bill paying service to pay them. I started doing that in January and it is extremely easy, convenient, and best of all FREE! I only have one or two bills that I pay by check each month so I'm also saving on the cost of new checks a couple times a year.

I also have a specific amount of money automatically transferred from my checking account into my savings account at the end of each month so I'm building up my savings as well.