I've never understood the real significance of automatic bill pay. Once a month, within 30 minutes, all bills can be paid online at each website manually.
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I don't get how this is useful. All of my bill pay are automated and have been for at least a decade. I get paid once a month the total cost of my bills goes to one account and from the rest a portion goes to savings and a portion to a spending account. As my bills get paid the bills account gradually decreases to near zero and at the beginning of each month it's refilled automatically with my direct deposit. I never have to think about paying bills late and have infact never missed a payment.
Do you not have the option to receive emails and pay online?
All of my "manual" bills work that way. It takes a few seconds of clicking to schedule the payment on the due date for the full amount, and even log it to my software, which doubles as a chance to check that there wasn't something unexpected going on.
I think being fully aware of every bill or credit card you pay is helpful in being full control of your finances. I get that impression that some people using automatic payments don't slow down to review things carefully. That may not be the case for you, but that doesn't mean others don't make that mistake.
Auto-pay is your friend. I would never pay any bills if I had to do them manually. My bank also has a feature where you get notified if a bill is higher than usual so they help you catch if you are being overbilled.
I haven't paid bills "manually" in almost 15+ years. You waste so much time opening mail, writing checks, buying stamps, etc. I put everything on auto-pay, with the exception of property taxes (only because the city won't allow it.)
For every bill I have from phone to internet to all utilities to every credit card, insurance, etc etc etc... That I can name, there is an auto payment option.
The only thing I can think of that still requires a check is paying rent. But for that, and anything else that would require payment by checks, billpay (which is free with every bank I know of or have used) takes care of this.
All of these pretty much can already be automated. All that said, legitimate question, but is there a scenario here that I am overlooking where this would be covered by your service that I can't automate bill payments without writing a check already. Or more accurately, what's different between this and billpay most banks offer (aside from the interface).
EDIT: I suppose the auto address update is a nice feature that most people might have a use for
Instead, I have a monthly reminder to pay my bills every month, with a list of all the bills/sites that need to be paid. There's 11 things in the list, but not all of them have a balance every month. I do this towards the end of the month (instead of at the beginning of the month), so that I can include rent in it too, and pay _everything_. It lets me see whether my spending is creeping up and gives me an opportunity to cancel useless stuff. It doesn't take long (5-30 mins depending on how detailed I'm being).
If you are spending an hour a week tracking bills, or even 1/2 hour, you aren't taking advantage of your bank. We set up auto bill pay whenever we can. I prefer to have it through my bank or my credit card rather than through the service provider doing EFT, because it's easier to shut off and it centralizes the view.
That doesn't mean you can totally put this task on autopilot, just that automation can make sure you don't have late fees and that you don't spend money on stamps.
Most payments are done using SEPA mandates. The money automatically leaves your account, but you still get a piece of paper with the details.
I don’t remember paying a single bill manually for the past 3 years at least. Credit card is paid in full at the end of the month as well automatically.
Same here. I carefully plan my bill paying schedule so as to never go below zero in my checking account. Sometimes that involves deferring payments until the next paycheck. With AutoPay I give up that ability to schedule exactly when the money goes out.
Additionally, I like to review every bill I pay to make sure it makes sense. I've had to dispute bills in the past that were unexplainably incorrect by $10, $20, sometimes close to $50, and if I had them on AutoPay I probably wouldn't have even noticed it.
Do you really pay you bills manually each month? When regular payments (like rent) are not debited directly from my account, I set up an auto transfer that sends out rent to my landlord at the 1st day of each month.
In my bank, your bills go to your bank, but you have to log in to click and pay them. You have the option of setting up auto-approval, but if you'd rather review all of your bills, this is the default.
I typically spend about 1 minute per month paying bills.
Automated almost all my bill payments to use my rewards card. I set up alerts on my online banking site so I get texted when each one clears. Saves me a couple hours of grumpy time each month, plus I get a substantial 1% cash back that ends up being about $200/year. Also, you can dispute charges on a credit card if they get it wrong. Can't do that with bill payment service.
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