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Do you autopay your bills?
Old 11-29-2017, 03:08 PM   #1
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Do you autopay your bills?

I auto pay almost all my bills. Plus I auto transfer into my savings account, the kid's charge card account, and my vacation account. But I just noticed that the county lets us setup to auto pay our property tax. I'm thinking about doing it. Do any of you auto pay your property taxes?
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Old 11-29-2017, 03:19 PM   #2
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My property taxes are paid once a year and there are several options, depending on whether one is living in the house or is over 65, or wants to defer them. Also, it’s a lump sum, so I want to make sure that I have sufficient cash in the account. So no, I do not have it on autopay. But I have made errors. For example, when I switched from paying by cheque to electronic payment, I did not realize that I had to check a box on the City’s website to apply for the homeowner grant, so I had to pay a penalty.

I have all my monthly bills on autopay, though.
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Old 11-29-2017, 03:20 PM   #3
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I autopay everything except our primary credit card and the property taxes. SD County does not have autopay for property tax. They don't even let you schedule the payment in advance, just process it upon submission.
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Old 11-29-2017, 03:23 PM   #4
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The county where our main home is located will take ACH payments directly from checking and I have set up to do that. The county where our lake home is located does not offer the service.

All my auto-pays are through Schwab Bank, not an untrusted and unregulated entity like Quicken.

I would never even consider paying childrens' credit card bills, however. Ack!
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Old 11-29-2017, 03:24 PM   #5
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I don't auto-pay prop taxes or anything else (except where it's absolutely required).

I trust myself more than I trust auto-pay, and I like being able to control exactly when payments get made.

I would especially avoid auto-paying directly from a bank account. Your money is missing while any "mistakes" get ironed out.
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Old 11-29-2017, 03:29 PM   #6
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We have as much on autopay as we can, including property taxes. I know some folks worry about incorrect charges, but I've never had a problem and we watch our bills religiously.
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Old 11-29-2017, 03:31 PM   #7
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I'm with Onward on this.

We started to get a discount on the property taxes when I hit age 65, and if they are paid before they are actually due there is a further 2.5% discount so that's what I do.
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Old 11-29-2017, 03:44 PM   #8
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I have everything I can on autopay including property taxes.
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Old 11-29-2017, 03:48 PM   #9
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I autopay the steady, monthly bills which include utilities (cable TV, Internet, phone, now an all-in-one package) and my co-op maintenance. The utilities are ACH while the co-op maintenance is a mailed check (they charge a fee for ACH). I pay most of the others on line but not via autopay.
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Old 11-29-2017, 04:03 PM   #10
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Autopay everything except for property taxes.
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Old 11-29-2017, 04:04 PM   #11
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I autopay most recurring monthly bills with my credit card so I can get the points/cashback. Then I manually pay the credit card bill(either by ACH or writing a check). My property taxes must be paid by check.
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Old 11-29-2017, 04:07 PM   #12
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I have only my cell bill set to autopay as it's tiny.

I likely should go ahead and set up the mortgage and other regular/never-changing bills to autopay, but I like reviewing everything and bill paying and account reviews hasn't become a chore to me yet.
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Old 11-29-2017, 04:15 PM   #13
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I only autopay when required. I prefer to review and pay bills online. Probably a “control thing”, but it works for me.
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Old 11-29-2017, 04:22 PM   #14
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Originally Posted by OldShooter View Post
I would never even consider paying childrens' credit card bills, however. Ack!
yeah, he's a college junior with a cell phone on the charge card I cover, he pays the other charge card. Only 1.5 yrs to go

Good point on Schwab (won't bounce)
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Old 11-29-2017, 04:24 PM   #15
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Cable, cell phone, and power bills are on auto pay. Everything else I pay when billed. We'd have trouble doing auto pay with the real estate tax bills, with three properties all coming due over two months. We usually don't have enough in our checking account to cover all three so have to move some money around before writing the checks.
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Old 11-29-2017, 04:40 PM   #16
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Originally Posted by gayl View Post
yeah, he's a college junior with a cell phone on the charge card I cover, he pays the other charge card. Only 1.5 yrs to go
You are a very generous mom.

Quote:
Originally Posted by gayl View Post
Good point on Schwab (won't bounce)
Yeah, my cash account is the overdraft backup and the backup to that is a $10K credit line. So I never worry about exact timing on transferring money for big bills like property taxes. Once in a while I'll pay a buck or two in credit line interest but overall it is a pretty smooth-running machine.

Having everything on autopay is also nice because we travel and are often out of the country for three weeks or a little more.
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Old 11-29-2017, 04:47 PM   #17
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I don't have auto-pay for taxes but I do use the online pay method rather than write a check

My credit cards are set for auto pay but I always pay them manually the day the most recent charges post. The auto pay is only to cover anything outstanding if I happen to be incapacitated. Everything else, insurance, rent, utilities are on auto pay.
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Old 11-29-2017, 04:51 PM   #18
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As Gumby said I pay whatever I can (for free) with credit cards, for the points. I have very few bills on auto pay.... Cable, cell phone, and health insurance. Everything else I "push". As Cathy, above, mentioned, San Diego county doesn't have auto pay for property taxes. In fact they charge for credit card payments so I always do the electronic transfer from checking. Property taxes are a big enough bill that I usually need to transfer funds to checking to cover it... So I don't know that I'd want to auto pay.
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Old 11-29-2017, 04:52 PM   #19
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(By "auto-pay", in this post I mean the method by which I give permission for the company to take the payment they feel is owed, directly out of my checking account.)

I have always been absent minded (or perhaps you might call it "priority challenged"? ), and that isn't a good thing when it affects bill paying.

So, I have had all of my regular bills on auto-pay for the past 17 years, except for some insurance bills and property taxes that can be paid once a year. That's not so hard to remember.

As for property tax, each year I give the Parish (=County) permission to remove the stated amount from my checking account that one time only. There is a fee for using a credit card instead, so I just avoid the fee by asking them to take it straight out of the bank.

My bills and the automatic payments always match perfectly, and a big bonus is that my credit score rose since my bills are never paid late any more.
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Old 11-29-2017, 05:06 PM   #20
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... (By "auto-pay", I mean the method by which I give permission for the company to take the payment they feel is owed, directly out of my checking account.) ...
Which makes me realize that a definition of "auto pay" might be worth discussing.

I think @W2R is referring to ACH transfers, which are originated by the payee for "whatever they feel they are owed." I dislike and avoid ACH because it is completely out of my control. ("Automated Clearing House")

My autopays from Schwab involve the payee electronically sending a bill to Schwab, my getting an email notice of the bill amount, and Schwab automatically paying the bill unless I intervene during the grace period. I have two bills where the vendor can't submit electronically: our lake home telehone/internet and our home ISP/internet. The ISP bill is the same every month so I just have Schwab send them a fixed monthly check. The lake bill varies by a few pennies but I send a fixed monthly amount and adjust any cumulative variations by tweeking the payment a few cents once or twice a year. Only my county taxes go by ACH, since I have no option.
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