Do you auto-pay your CC accounts?

[jazz4cash]

I play the rewards game so always have a lot of cards. I charge everything unless there is a fee (my water bill for example).

I’m rethinking this. I just paid our water bill even though they charge $1.75. With a 2% cashback card It’s only 1/3 of the reward. I had to schedule it at the vendor’s site which I don’t like to do either. Its the first time I’ve paid a fee to use a card. OTOH I think the fee to pay property taxes is 3% so that’ll never work.

 

[bada bing]

I am an autopay nut. Everything that can possibly be set up to autopay, is.
Every recurring bill that can autopay from credit card is, those that won't do
CC are set to pull from checking account. The credit cards are set to autopay
when due.

I am not a very organized person. Autopay has been a boon to my financial
management. I went full autopay 15 years ago and haven't looked back. I
haven't had a glitch in 15 years. I do usually check online prior to payment
day and I get email notices when stuff happens. Before using autopay, I
would occasionally miss due dates. Since autopaying:

1. Not a penny in CC interest in 15 years
2. Haven't lost a day of CC grace period
3. Last 5 years continuous a perfect 850 FICO8 on all 3 bureaus.

My hat is tipped to all the super organized finance whizzes who manually pay
their bills on time, every time. I know from experience that isn't me.

One thing I have wondered about autopay is if having PIF autopay set on a
CC account influences the credit card companies. I know that credit card
companies have buckets based on payment behavior - broadly called
transactors and revolvers. By setting up a PIF autopay, you are very much
indicating you are a transactor. Given that credit companies expend some
effort tracking payment behavior for their computer models to infer your
future actions, it would seem a slam dunk that setting up PIF autopay would
label you in their systems.

 

[CaliKid]

Everything that can be on auto pay is on auto pay and has been as long as I can recall - 15-20 years!? I usually check credit card statement when I get email, verify no problems, and then it gets paid automatically a few weeks later. I can't imagine writing a check or doing a manual push of the money. That makes absolutely no sense for any bill from any reputable company.

 

[DeborahB]

I tried having all the bills come electronically. I found I’m not organized enough to save the bills online, or routinely look at them online. So I’m back to paper. The ppayments are automated. And I gave up on the points game for paying bills with cc. I charge almost everything and get those points. I get a real benefit on amazon when the credits show up on the payment screen!

 

[W2R]

Everything that can be on auto pay is on auto pay and has been as long as I can recall - 15-20 years!? I usually check credit card statement when I get email, verify no problems, and then it gets paid automatically a few weeks later. I can't imagine writing a check or doing a manual push of the money. That makes absolutely no sense for any bill from any reputable company.

Same here. For me it has been 19 years and never the slightest error; I check each payment when I record it in my spending spreadsheet, and for 19 years every single payment has been correct to the penny.

My guess is that many don't do this because they have read frightening (clickbait?) stories about it in the media that cause them to fear losing money if they do. Each person has to find their own comfort zone. For me, the convenience of not having to deal with monthly bills for 19 years, and the boost to my credit rating due to no bill ever being paid late or incorrectly, are worth quite a bit. That said, since none of my payments have been incorrect or excessive I have not paid even one cent for this wonderful service.

 

[Splash]

I auto pay cc in full each month. I also auto pay whatever else I can.

I used to get paper cc statements, review them, and then pay them. Then, several years ago, a credit card statement didn't arrive in the mail one month. I didn't realize it until the late notice came. I thought it was a fluke. Called cc company. I had to pay interest but they waived the late fee. When it happened again the very next month, I thought this is no fluke. Someone could be stealing mail out of our rural mailbox while we are at work/school. From that day on, I moved to paperless statements.

 

[Dtail]

Same here. For me it has been 19 years and never the slightest error; I check each payment when I record it in my spending spreadsheet, and for 19 years every single payment has been correct to the penny.

My guess is that many don't do this because they have read frightening (clickbait?) stories about it in the media that cause them to fear losing money if they do. Each person has to find their own comfort zone. For me, the convenience of not having to deal with monthly bills for 19 years, and the boost to my credit rating due to no bill ever being paid late or incorrectly, are worth quite a bit. That said, since none of my payments have been incorrect or excessive I have not paid even one cent for this wonderful service.

I do like manually paying my CC bills through BOA, which takes 5 minutes literally.
Was wondering though about allowing access to one's checking account - what happens if there is a breach?
With CC breaches which we have had our share, there never was an issue in getting the false charges reimbursed.

 

[Helena]

You have to call?

I prefer to call.

And I prefer to call on my landline [not my cell phone] because it is quicker and the audio is better.

.

 

[MarieIG]

I review each charge and push pay all credit card bills.

 

[Surewhitey]

We autopay anything possible. With credit cards for point, then pay the credit card off every month.

 

[dtbach]

Autopay as many things as possible. Never have late charges then. Still review the CC reports to see if anything is amiss.

 

[Helen]

We have everything on autopay and love it. We travel 4 - 6 months out of the year and the convenience is priceless.

 

[Kwirk]

You need to turn on the Do Not Disturb feature!

I've improved my sleep a bit differently.

I have one credit card used only for auto payment of recurring bills. I never carry that card with me and I don't use it for one-time online purchases. I've never lost that card and nobody has ever pirated it. Turning off alerts for that card (I check it daily with Moneydance) solved the problem.

 

[kimcdougc]

All bills including credit cards are automatically pulled from checking. I do nothing but monitor the balances and activity.

+1. I do get a text alert for all payments and a text alert for all purchases on the credit cards. Works very well, especially when traveling. Works so well, I do the same for my dear dad and his bills. Keep an eye on all charges.

 

[audreyh1]

I've improved my sleep a bit differently.

I have one credit card used only for auto payment of recurring bills. I never carry that card with me and I don't use it for one-time online purchases. I've never lost that card and nobody has ever pirated it. Turning off alerts for that card (I check it daily with Moneydance) solved the problem.

iPhones have a Do Not Disturb feature where pings and other noises are shutoff overnight during whatever you designate as you time not to be disturbed. Very nice.

 

[REWahoo]

iPhones have a Do Not Disturb feature where pings and other noises are shutoff overnight during whatever you designate as you time not to be disturbed. Very nice.

All but the most basic android phones also have a DND feature, allowing you to specify who on your contact list can/can't call you between the hours you set. Late night wrong numbers are definitely something I don't miss from the old land line days.

 

[tracton]

We auto-pay the minimum on our CC, plus $100, then manually push the rest. This assures that we'll never be charged the non-payment penalty, but might incur interest for the second payment if I forget (which I've only done once). If we spend more in a month than I'm willing to pay, I'll need to adjust the second payment.

Also: I only use the CC that has the highest cash back... why use the others that are not going to pay me?

 

[gooddog]

For CC accounts, I get the bills sent to me in .pdf format. I pay them using online banking but do not autopay them. Other stuff, like medical insurance, I do autopay

Same here. Should be verifying everything is right each month before paying it.

 

[Tracer]

I have the Fidelity Elan VISA card (IMO the best all around cash back card). Bill paying every month for me is a snap. At the end of every month I add up all bills for the following month. All I need to do is check that there is enough in my Fidelity checking account to cover them. With direct deposits I get, there usually is. Occasionally I have to transfer in some additional if my VISA bill has a higher balance than normal. I always pay in full and don't carry over balances. All bills are pulled by direct debit. I don't use the bill pay function. I like keeping all my bills together in one place for reference so I still receive paper bills.

 

[VungTau]

Isn't it funny how we all wrote checks for years with our acct number, routing number, name and address, bank branch and handed them out all over town for years without a care, But we worry about that same info now, haha!

Never had a big issue with auto pay, made my life so much easier in America. Now that I live overseas there is nothing much to autopay at all, oh ya! I charge everything possible on my credit cards and they are auto paid in the US, everything else is cash.

 

[meleana]

I have auto pay on everything I can possibly have it on. So great not to have to write checks and buy stamps and all that. I get notified by email that the statements are ready way before the payment comes out of my checking, so no issues there.


I do like to print them out, however.



And I like to go over my credit card statements line by line against my receipts.

 

[dixter]

I'm a bit surprised that some folks here say they just auto pay CC without looking at all of the charges.... we ALLWAYS go thru each CC statement to make sure all of the charges are correct.... just about every other month we find items that we did not purchase on our cards... and we dispute them... I asked the CC fraud people how can our cards be subject to this abuse and they told me its internet based charges.. because who ever is cheating the system just goes on line and buys items... last month we had three charges that added up to over $1000 that weren't ours... all of our monthly bills seem to be fine most of the time... except last month when Frontier charged $300 for a cable bill.... still not sure what they were up to... but if I hadn't looked at the CC statement they too would have been paid and I wouldn't have been any wiser... always check each and every line in the statement... you never know...

 

[jazz4cash]

I'm a bit surprised that some folks here say they just auto pay CC without looking at all of the charges.... we ALLWAYS go thru each CC statement to make sure all of the charges are correct.... just about every other month we find items that we did not purchase on our cards... and we dispute them... I asked the CC fraud people how can our cards be subject to this abuse and they told me its internet based charges.. because who ever is cheating the system just goes on line and buys items... last month we had three charges that added up to over $1000 that weren't ours... all of our monthly bills seem to be fine most of the time... except last month when Frontier charged $300 for a cable bill.... still not sure what they were up to... but if I hadn't looked at the CC statement they too would have been paid and I wouldn't have been any wiser... always check each and every line in the statement... you never know...

Which card is this? I don’t think I could tolerate that much abuse. I would switch or have an internet only card. I do check each charge but also get email/text alerts above $100 and balance alerts also.

 

[wanaberetiree]

I have all bills on auto pay for 5-7 years I had 0 problems

 

[Dash man]

I have an app for each credit card and I can either manually pull from my checking account or use my bill pay. It’s so easy I typically pay the bill the day it hits my account. That way I keep close tabs on the charges, catching any bogus charges right away. I also get a text for charges on some of my lesser used accounts.