Do you autopay your bills?

[gayl]

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?

 

[Meadbh]

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.

 

[cathy63]

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.

 

[OldShooter]

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!

 

[Onward]

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.

 

[Maenad]

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.

 

[Walt34]

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.

 

[Alan]

I have everything I can on autopay including property taxes.

 

[scrabbler1]

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.

 

[neihn]

Autopay everything except for property taxes.

 

[Gumby]

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.

 

[FrankiesGirl]

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.

 

[Dog]

I only autopay when required. I prefer to review and pay bills online. Probably a “control thing”, but it works for me.

 

[gayl]

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)

 

[Philliefan33]

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.

 

[OldShooter]

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.

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.

 

[razztazz]

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.

 

[rodi]

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.

 

[W2R]

(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.

 

[OldShooter]

... (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.

 

[athena53]

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.

Same here- I'm a control freak. I do auto-pay the mortgage because I don't want to mess that one up- but *I* set up the payment for the first of every month- in other words, I push it to them, they don't pull it from me. My Planet Fitness membership, unfortunately, requires them to be able to pull it from my checking account. I don't like it, but I like Planet Fitness. Last year's health insurer also required this; current year's insurer allowed credit cards and I allowed that auto-pay, too. Don't want to get that wrong and I was happy to get 2% back from Fidelity.

 

[W2R]

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.

Right.

You know, it's hard to put a dollar value on the convenience of auto-pay for someone like me. Not only did my credit score skyrocket, and not only do I never get phone calls from creditors, or have my electricity shut off on a Saturday night, or some other calamity... but also it's just one less chore nagging me in the back of my mind at all times.

As I mentioned I have not had one auto-pay that differed from the exact amount I owed, to the penny, in the past 17 years, and that is doing about a half dozen to a dozen or so each month. At this point, even if one was off by a huge amount I would consider auto-pay to be worth it for the convenience I have already enjoyed. No fees, and no middleman either.

YMMV and I know some very rational, nice people who genuinely love paying bills in other ways, sometimes even by hand. Individual preference is the best way to do this.

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.

+1000

 

[kaneohe]

Seems to be 2 choices here:
1) Be paranoid of something bad happening and do all the work yourself;
2) Be trusting at the risk of something messing up.

I don't like the work of paying each bill manually each month nor the risk of forgetting to pay some so I've had autopay for decades.....to credit card if possible for the rewards, and if not possible, to checking acct.

In all those yrs, I've had two booboos but still favor the convenience of autopay. In one case, I had electronic link to checking so mutual fund could deposit monthly dividends there. Fund decided that I had signed up for autoinvest for some reason and depleted checking acct, causing a bunch of checks to bounce w/ the resultant $25 or so fees/check. Fortunately credit union was understanding enough to waive fees and mutual fund admitted their error. I guess that wasn't really an "autopay" error but be aware that mistakes can happen even if payment is going the other way (to you).

The second incident may have a valuable lesson for some. The Rx drug plan was signed up for autopay. One day a withdrawal 10x normal occurred. The
drug company was not cooperative but a side benefit was I discovered a way to deal w/ them. The credit union said they could pull the payment back if I signed some papers and it worked.

 

[audreyh1]

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?

No, I'm not going to autopay property taxes since it's a large amount and I need to transfer funds to cover it. But I do plan to pay online.

I do autopay most bills, by credit cards where I can, by ebill where I can, and a few are direct debit - mostly insurance. The few exceptions to autopay are a couple of cards that I sometimes run up large balances on, and I need to make sure extra funds are in place before scheduling the payment.

Even my estimated taxes were on autopay this year! I just set up the quarterly draft at eftps.gov.

 

[VanWinkle]

I autopay everything except property taxes. I try to make them wait til the last minute.