Do you Autopay your Monthly Bills?

[Slater]

Im only 51 & Ive set all my bills, utilities, hoa dues, insurance, etc on auto pay.....
My home is paid-off so Im on the hook to save for property tax bill..
Bank teller made me aware that I can have as many savings acct tabs as you want within your initial bank acct...
So I have a second savings acct tab titled "property tax"
Monthly $450 gets automatically transferred from my checking acct over to this dedicated property tax savings acct..
I pay both property tax installments at the same time & get that behind me...
Works for me & dont need to think about where the proprty tax money is going to come from when the time comes.
I try & take advantage of my Capital One credit card rewards as much as possible, vacation points....

 

[teej1985]

Fidelity Signature Visa. One of my accounts at Fidelity is managed which comes with some enhanced benefits. Their card is normally 2% cashback. One of the benefits is they give you extra cashback on their Visa card up to 3% depending on the amount managed.

Ah, that makes sense. More than likely the revenue they are making off your managed account more than offsets the extra cashback.

 

[brett]

We only have 2 auto pays.

Everything possible goes to our credit cards. No autopay on those.

 

[audreyh1]

I get 2 property tax bills each year - an estimated one for the August payment, and then final bill for the tax year, with 3 scheduled payment dates. I pay these via my bank's Bill Pay. My property tax bill offers a feature to "pay by eCheck" but likewise charges a convenience fee.
Using my Bill Pay, I just enter my account # in the Memo Field; no convenience fee, I schedule those 3 payments. I get all the convenience without the convenience fee.

It’s true, I could do it by Bank Billpay. I’ve mainly been worried about seeing that the payment is credit to the correct account.

I can see online at the county if it has been paid, but if there is a problem, I wouldn’t know what to do. Maybe I should try Fidelity who doesn’t debit your account until a mailed check clears. And you have the cancelled check image too.

The echeck thing can be dangerous. Our county (really the company who provides the service) drafted some people multiple times a few years ago. Nasty!

 

[pb4uski]

IF you don't yet autopay your bills...

I don't know about your household, but our household is pretty slow on New Year's Day. So a number of years ago I sat down and set up every bill that I could on autopay.

To my credit card if possible and no or a negligible fee for doing so, or to my bank but only if it couldn't autopay to the credit card and thee was no or a negligible fee.

I still get the same monthly statements from vendors and have a chance to review the charges before the autopay happens. I don't have to worry about making payments... it happens automatically. The only thing that I need to make sure of is that I have enough in my checking to cover my payments and Quicken's 90-day projection of my credit account balances does that for me and I make a transfer if the balance is getting uncomfortably low.

It is without a doubt one of the best things that I have ever done. Give it a try!

 

[athena53]

I have very little on auto-pay because I'm a control freak.

The mortgage is- don't want to mess that up. Anything that requires autopay (Medicare supplement, Netflix, Google Fiber, etc.) is on autopay, by Fidelity Visa if possible. I do the rest on-line.

 

[teej1985]

I'm glad you mentioned USAA. I finally called and confirmed that I won't lose the discount or incur any additional fees. My autopay was initially set up in 2001 and I'm certain that they required ACH to not pay more at that time (I charge everything I can on rewards cards). Never occurred to me to ask if they changed the policy before this thread.

Happy to hear that it worked out. I'm surprised that you're able to get USAA to insure your property in Florida.

 

[euro]

I have a new responsibility in retirement where I now am paying the utility bills.
Presently I am paying house bills monthly on-line. I am wondering if should I set up autopay for most of bills? Do you trust the bank and or credit card pay method on-line?

I'm new to the thread and haven't read all the responses so far, so sorry if this has been exhaustively discussed already.
I have been a holdout against autodrafts in general because I have always been leery of giving my banking info to any merchants/utility/etc. My main concern has been (and still is, I guess...) that the more entities hold my banking info, the more likely it is that it will get hacked and stolen. I'm not really too concerned about the companies themselves although ANY company can have bad-apple-employee who steals/sells confidential customer info.
However, recently, I have become a convert. Why? Because my simple online banking payments have become unreliable. The post office evidently has become so busy that one can no longer count on checks mailed by the bank to various payees will arrive on time. I''m not talking about a few days of delay, but instead, I have recently had several cases where the check has not arrived even after 6 or more weeks. I have had more failed payments in the last 6 months then I have had the previous 25 years combined. Thus, I will take my chances with direct bank drafts from here on out. Seems like a loss for the post office, but hey, a few more years and they will have made themselves completely redundant anyway.

 

[rk911]

I'm new to the thread and haven't read all the responses so far, so sorry if this has been exhaustively discussed already.
I have been a holdout against autodrafts in general because I have always been leery of giving my banking info to any merchants/utility/etc. My main concern has been (and still is, I guess...) that the more entities hold my banking info, the more likely it is that it will get hacked and stolen. I'm not really too concerned about the companies themselves although ANY company can have bad-apple-employee who steals/sells confidential customer info.
However, recently, I have become a convert. Why? Because my simple online banking payments have become unreliable. The post office evidently has become so busy that one can no longer count on checks mailed by the bank to various payees will arrive on time. I''m not talking about a few days of delay, but instead, I have recently had several cases where the check has not arrived even after 6 or more weeks. I have had more failed payments in the last 6 months then I have had the previous 25 years combined. Thus, I will take my chances with direct bank drafts from here on out. Seems like a loss for the post office, but hey, a few more years and they will have made themselves completely redundant anyway.

My wife and I have been using ACH auto-debit from our checking account for many, many years. While our credit cards have been compromised several times our checking account has not. The single issue we had was early on. Our electric company failed to ping our bank for the monthly bill. That was easily resolved.

 

[Slater]

My wife and I have been using ACH auto-debit from our checking account for many, many years. While our credit cards have been compromised several times our checking account has not. The single issue we had was early on. Our electric company failed to ping our bank for the monthly bill. That was easily resolved.

My electric company "sdg&e" will do autopay to the bank but credit card isnt an option...
Im just wanting / was hoping to use my credit card to take advantage of travel points on my cc....

 

[teej1985]

My electric company "sdg&e" will do autopay to the bank but credit card isnt an option...
Im just wanting / was hoping to use my credit card to take advantage of travel points on my cc....

You can pay SDGE by credit card, it's $1.50 per transaction. If you use a 2% card on a $100 electric bill, your cashback is greater than the fee. Of course, there's no way to automate it. https://www.sdge.com/residential/pay-bill/my-bill

 

[Slater]

You can pay SDGE by credit card, it's $1.50 per transaction. If you use a 2% card on a $100 electric bill, your cashback is greater than the fee. Of course, there's no way to automate it. https://www.sdge.com/residential/pay-bill/my-bill

yes, can manually pay monthly with cc, but cant automate the cc payment...
on the fence, sure is nice to not have to lift a finger at this point...

 

[Sunset]

I'm new to the thread and haven't read all the responses so far, so sorry if this has been exhaustively discussed already.
I have been a holdout against autodrafts in general because I have always been leery of giving my banking info to any merchants/utility/etc. My main concern has been (and still is, I guess...) that the more entities hold my banking info, the more likely it is that it will get hacked and stolen. I'm not really too concerned about the companies themselves although ANY company can have bad-apple-employee who steals/sells confidential customer info.
However, recently, I have become a convert. Why? Because my simple online banking payments have become unreliable. The post office evidently has become so busy that one can no longer count on checks mailed by the bank to various payees will arrive on time. I''m not talking about a few days of delay, but instead, I have recently had several cases where the check has not arrived even after 6 or more weeks. I have had more failed payments in the last 6 months then I have had the previous 25 years combined. Thus, I will take my chances with direct bank drafts from here on out. Seems like a loss for the post office, but hey, a few more years and they will have made themselves completely redundant anyway.

When you mailed a check to someone, you gave them all your bank information and a sample signature too !!! You also gave that info to anyone that saw the check on a desk, or picked it out of the mailbox (happens around here a lot).

Literally the check has your bank account number, your name, your signature, name of the bank, and the bank code number. There is nothing else needed to take money out of your account.

Companies that got the check, might have stored that information in their database, so they can track what happened to the payment and the check if it disappears.

To me, online payments are safer, at least they don't have my signature

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

When you mailed a check to someone, you gave them all your bank information and a sample signature too !!! You also gave that info to anyone that saw the check on a desk, or picked it out of the mailbox (happens around here a lot).

Literally the check has your bank account number, your name, your signature, name of the bank, and the bank code number. There is nothing else needed to take money out of your account.

Companies that got the check, might have stored that information in their database, so they can track what happened to the payment and the check if it disappears.

To me, online payments are safer, at least they don't have my signature

Some people even had their SSN printed on the checks.


Now that I have USAA on board, only my CC companies (and unfortunately, Duke Energy) directly debit my account to pay the balance in full. I get rewards, float, and a buffer between my accounts and from every other entity.

 

[Badger]

I guess I am a holdout. I don't use autopay since I only have a few monthly bills. I use my CU Billpay. It is easy enough to pay monthly to a couple of CC companies, water and electric where I know exactly what the amounts will be and not rely on any of them to access my bank account. It only take a few minutes and lets me see trends at the same time. Bills like insurance and taxes are annual and vary each year so I would want to see any changes since I would need to do that anyway. Netflix is the only other bill and that is paid automatically through the CC so I guess that would be autopay.

 

[frayne]

When you mailed a check to someone, you gave them all your bank information and a sample signature too !!! You also gave that info to anyone that saw the check on a desk, or picked it out of the mailbox (happens around here a lot).

Literally the check has your bank account number, your name, your signature, name of the bank, and the bank code number. There is nothing else needed to take money out of your account.

Companies that got the check, might have stored that information in their database, so they can track what happened to the payment and the check if it disappears.

To me, online payments are safer, at least they don't have my signature

Exactly, and most people don't realize just how much of a trust and honor system our financial lives are based on.

 

[athena53]

When you mailed a check to someone, you gave them all your bank information and a sample signature too !!! You also gave that info to anyone that saw the check on a desk, or picked it out of the mailbox (happens around here a lot).

We have mail box thefts here, too. You can't even use the blue boxes outside the Post Office since people go "fishing" in them at night. Neighbors have had their checks stolen and "washed" with the payee and amount changed. Sometimes the thieves succeed in cashing them, sometimes they don't. I'd rather the checks come from Fidelity.

 

[teej1985]

Some people even had their SSN printed on the checks.


Now that I have USAA on board, only my CC companies (and unfortunately, Duke Energy) directly debit my account to pay the balance in full. I get rewards, float, and a buffer between my accounts and from every other entity.

Duke Energy's website suggests they take CC's too: https://www.duke-energy.com/home/billing/pay-bill "Make a quick payment, save your bank or card information for the future, and explore all our free billing and payment options for residential accounts." " Pay As a Guest* Residential accounts can make a free, one-time payment using a card or your bank account without signing in. You'll need your account number."

 

[braumeister]

Duke Energy's website suggests they take CC's too

Alas, not for autopay.

 

[Finance Dave]

I used to do some through direct debit from bank, but switched what I could do pay via CC. This is because our Wells Fargo card gives us $100 back for each $10,000 we charge. Of course we pay off the full balance monthly.

 

[SecondCor521]

I used to do some through direct debit from bank, but switched what I could do pay via CC. This is because our Wells Fargo card gives us $100 back for each $10,000 we charge. Of course we pay off the full balance monthly.

There's a Wells Fargo 2% cash back card that might interest you. My son got it recently, plus he snagged a $200 sign up bonus.

 

[kgtest]

Mortgage, car insurance, home insurance, t-mobile and comcast are all on autopay. Comcast and tmobile made me switch to my checking account. Insurance is through AAA and they give a discount if you autopay and another discount if its for insurance premiums...ANY insurance premiums...even my business insurance which is not through AAA.

I pay all my CCs manually.

 

[Finance Dave]

There's a Wells Fargo 2% cash back card that might interest you. My son got it recently, plus he snagged a $200 sign up bonus.

Darn it, you are right...you caught me in a mistake! That's the card we have...2% back....I will attempt to edit my previous post.

Edit: Won't let me edit original post. lol

 

[palomalou]

Yes, absolutely. We have never had a problem. I trust them much more than for my husband being sure to catch every bill as it comes in the mail...