How to pay recurring bills like taxes and insurance?

[Petunia 100]

We have a system that works, but would love to hear what others are doing.

Our mortgage has been paid off for a couple years now, but we still have recurring fees: county tax, school tax, insurance policies (home/auto/term). Some of these came out of escrow, which vanished when the mortgage was satisfied. The solution we found that works well is to calculate the annual combined costs, divide by the number of pay periods per year, and then set direct deposit into a dedicated checking account. When a bill comes, we already have money set aside. To account for increases in the costs, we increase the direct deposit by about 10% per year.

What do you do?

This is exactly what I do for auto/5th wheel insurance and registration. (Except for the automatic annual 10% increase).

[moneyhop123]

Automatic payments have gotten unbelievably simple to set up.

Go straightforwardly to the seller

The main strategy is to go straightforwardly to the organization, seller, or bank you're attempting to pay.

For instance, say you have a $400 vehicle installment, with the credit subsidized through Chase. You can sign on to Chase's site and set up a programmed installment to be taken out each month when your bill comes.

You would basically enter your financial records data and pick a date for the installment to come out every month. Much of the time, you can choose for the installment to be conveyed on the due date or a few days prior.

Experience your bank

Another approach to do this is set up a programmed installment through your bank, which many individuals like.

State your financial records is with HSBC. You'd just sign onto your record and go to the bill pay area. From that point, you'd enter the data straightforwardly from your Chase bill, for example, the record number and the installment address.

On the off chance that your bank has the merchant's electronic installment data, they'll make the installment through ACH, as I examined previously. This implies it'll be paid electronically and takes a day or so to show up electronically. In the event that they don't have your merchant's electronic installment data, a check will be naturally produced, printed, and shipped off the seller. A genuine illustration of when this would happen is a more modest service charge (this occurs with my sewer bill, for instance).

Utilize your MasterCard

In conclusion, you can generally plug your Visa data in to take care of a tab that acknowledges cards. A model here would be your PDA bill. Let's assume you have your bill through Verizon. You'd just sign into your online record with Verizon and set up a programmed installment (normally done through their "installments" area) by entering your MasterCard data and choosing a date for it to pay; I've discovered that Chase Freedom Flex℠ has an especially simple to-utilize versatile application.

[terri77]

With USAA my insurance is paid monthly. Property taxes they send an invoice in December. Property taxes are roughly one month’s mortgage payment.

[Drake3287]

I think writing a check for property taxes is the only check I write each year. Everything else including all my various insurance payments are made with a credit card simply for the cash rewards. As for coming up with my yearly $4,300. property tax payment, I simply put aside money each month towards it.

[disneysteve]

I think writing a check for property taxes is the only check I write each year.

We can either write a check or do an online e-payment. There is a $0.99 fee for doing it online but I figure a stamp is $0.55 making the net fee only $0.44 so I "splurge" and do it online.

[bobdsouza]

Recurring payments, familiarly referred to as AutoPay, means the consumer has given permission for a retailer or merchant to deduct payments for goods or services each month from the consumer's bank account or to automatically charge his credit card in the amount due each month.