Do you autopay your bills?

[pb4uski]

About 5-6 years ago DD convinced me to go to autopay for as much as possible. On New Year's Day, I sat down and moved as much to autopay as possible.

Where possible, I used my 2% rebate credit card, otherwise a direct debit of our checking account. Where I can't do those or there is a charge for using autopay then I order electronic checks from our bank.

Both of our property taxes are only once a year and charge fees to use autopay, so for those I order a check when I get the property tax bill.

I also move a lot of my mother's bill to autopay.

Between all of them, I have yet to have a problem or issue with a mispaid bill.

 

[jazz4cash]

I try to only use the push method using BOA checking. I do permit Planet Fitness ($10/mo) and my mortgage lender to pull payments. I don't think the county is setup for autopay so I manually authorize them to pull payments as required. I may try pushing a payment to them to see what happens. I've had good luck using billpay to transfer funds to other institutions instead of using the transfer process.

 

[GrayHare]

With autopay and uncertainty about how much will be pulled, how do you make sure to have enough in the account?

 

[pb4uski]

With autopay and uncertainty about how much will be pulled, how do you make sure to have enough in the account?

I have all my regular bills and deposits defined in Quicken... I update them weekly or so...my home page in Quicken shows the projected balance in my bill payment checking account for the next 90 days. Since I get 2% on the first $10k in my checking account I try to keep about that in it.

 

[sengsational]

From best to worst:

• Give my credit card number directly to the vendor (no extra fee)
• Pay using my bank's "check-free" type solution
• Give my account & routing number directly to the vendor

I don't let anybody do the last thing. So nobody pulls directly from my checking account. In other words, I don't give out my bank's routing number & my account number. No "pulls" for me, because if they take your money, you're just out of luck. And if they get hacked, then the hackers have what they need to pull money out. It probably will get straightened-out eventually, but in the mean time, you're out that cash.


The best auto pay is when you put your credit card (not debit card) into the vendor's site. My health insurance, internet, etc are like that. Not only do I get the protections of any credit card transaction, but I also get 2% back.

But the majority of my auto pay is with the bank's "check free" type solution. It's quick and easy and under my control. Most bills are "electronic", but I can set anybody up in the system and they will mail a paper check to them. It gets deducted from my account right away, so I don't get the "float" I'd get if I wrote the check myself, but interest is about zero on the account anyway. And if there's ever an issue with the vendor where they say they've not been paid, it's trivial to open a ticket on the transaction and someone else argues with the vendor...I just flag the bad transaction and go have a beer.

 

[aja8888]

Chase Bill Pay for most (initiated by me), property tax paid by check.

 

[Meadbh]

With autopay and uncertainty about how much will be pulled, how do you make sure to have enough in the account?

The biggest payment that is automatically deducted is just over $300 per month. I anticipate that and plan for it. I also check my accounts almost daily.

 

[audreyh1]

I have all my regular bills and deposits defined in Quicken... I update them weekly or so...my home page in Quicken shows the projected balance in my bill payment checking account for the next 90 days.

Same here. My Quicken version shows the next 30 days of scheduled bills which I update whenever I get a new bill. I leave enough in my various checking accounts to cover most of them as they are usually small to a few hundred dollars. I schedule transfers monthly from high yield savings, modifying the amount as needed. I do have to be more careful with the larger credit card balances >$1000 that happen due to travel or large purchases. I have to make sure enough funds are transferred ahead of time.

 

[akck]

I autopay everything except electricity and garbage. The main reason is my credit union waves bill pay fees if you make at least one payment through them each month. I like the option of using them for non-regular bills a couple times a year. I pay credit cards manually via ACH each month.

 

[Katsmeow]

Are we including subscriptions in this? I have a number of things paid periodically by credit card such as Netflix or annual Amazon Prime. For most of these there is no other option.

For other things I do a few auto pay: YMCA (well maybe that is more like Netflix actually), mortgage (did it because I didn't want to mess it up and is the same amount each month, health insurance (required to be paid from my bank account, and cell phone (get a discount for auto pay from checking account).

That's it. Everything else I pay directly. I pay everything I can with credit card to get the cash back. I log into YNAB on a daily basis and have my recurring transactions mostly scheduled so I know when things are going to come up. But, really maybe it would save more time to just set up auto pay on most things. There could be a mistake but I would think I would see it well in advance of due date as I log into credit card accounts frequently. So, maybe it would save time to do auto pay.

I've never heard of doing auto pay for property taxes. Don't even know if that is an option here. But, that is something I probably want to schedule on my own for when I want to do it.

 

[kcowan]

Everything on autopay to CC. Pay the CCs manually each month. Only a couple of early payments directly from bank account (before CCs allowed).

Property taxes were only enabled on autopay to CC a couple of years ago. Before that it was checks.

 

[audreyh1]

Are we including subscriptions in this? I have a number of things paid periodically by credit card such as Netflix or annual Amazon Prime. For most of these there is no other option.

Of course. Netflix isn’t really different from a monthly cable bill in that respect.

I load up my iTunes account with discounted iTunes gift cards (sometimes you can find 20% off), and pay for Netflix that way.

 

[Car-Guy]

I pay as much on line with CC that I can then pay that off each month and get 1.5% cash back. (except NetFlix which is on auto pay.) Although I am considering going to auto pay on all monthly utilities.

 

[scrabbler1]

With autopay and uncertainty about how much will be pulled, how do you make sure to have enough in the account?

I don't use autopay for any of my large, irregular bills, the ones whose amounts vary the most from month to month or are paid less often than monthly. The monthly ones are mainly the smaller ones, less than $150 each (cable TV is really that + phone + internet combined). The only large bill is the monthly co-op maintenance bill.

My car insurance and credit card bills (which sometimes include car insurance) I don't auto pay because I want to choose the time of the month to pay them and they often vary depending on the timing of cash inflows.

A few months ago, my dad was suddenly and unexpectedly laid up due to an injury which had him in the hospital and rehab facility for about 3 weeks. I had to scramble to make sure all of his bills got paid. I set up autopay for some of them such as the monthly ones I have set up for myself, so if he, who lives alone, has something like this happen to him again, it won't be such a mad scramble.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I do a "Push" auto-pay where possible. I do not allow a company to "Pull" from my bank accounts. There are 2 exceptions that I authorize them to pull from a credit card, but never from a bank account. Credit card payments are easier to stop if need be IMHO and from experience.

 

[donheff]

I auto-pay everything I can on credit cards and auto-pay the CCs from checking. I don't like to be caught away from home with tablets and no laptop and get caught with an overdue bill. I too often get screwed up with mobile devices and banking. I haven't been able to automate real property taxes so far but that is not a big deal. My checking account has penalty free overdraft protection. If I go over it makes an automatic loan to checking and notifies me. I straighten things out in the next few days and pay a deminimis interest charge.

 

[frayne]

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.

+1

 

[RetireAge50]

Everything except property taxes is automatic. I do monitor the accounts to make sure everything is legit. Also manually transfer money periodically for large purchases and vacations.

 

[audreyh1]

Our county’s uses actweb.acttax.com to manage their property tax reporting and collection. That’s how I get my statement online. You can pay by credit card with a 2.5% fee, or by “eCheck” where you give the the routing information. ACT apparently manage the tax stuff for 4000 taxing authorities. http://actweb.acttax.com/act_webdev/acttax/index.jsp

 

[RE2Boys]

Give someone the authority to raid my checking account for what "they" think is due them? You gotta be kidding. I've tried it and have had to go thru the trouble of getting refunds several times, no thanks.

I use electronic bill pay, but I must initiate the payment. Any auto-pay, if necessary, is only done through a credit card with established dispute procedures, ie, I refuse to pay as the charge is in error, write letter to cc company, win dispute, and I'm not out any money except for a first class stamp. I've had several instances of a company taking several months to stop taking money at their whim and me having to fight for a refund.

Property taxes can't be paid through auto-pay in my area anyway so moot point.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Everything is autopay to CC except water service and electricity which comes from checking account (they don't do CC debits) to maximize my cashback.

Our property taxes can't be done automatically and I usually set up a draft. I would use a CC, but they charge a 3% fee to do so.

Also, we keep a minimal amount in checking, but is tied to a CC for overdraft protection....have yet to have an issue.

 

[ls99]

No.

 

[davebarnes]

I auto-pay T-Mobile because they give me a 10% discount for doing so.
I manually pay everything else as I want control.
I also manually pay as it makes it easier to decide which credit card to use to get the most points.

 

[audreyh1]

I auto-pay T-Mobile because they give me a 10% discount for doing so.
I manually pay everything else as I want control.
I also manually pay as it makes it easier to decide which credit card to use to get the most points.

Right. We do too - by credit card.

All last year American Express Blue gave me 10% off US telecom company charges. That was sweet! I even bought a new phone through T-Mobile and got the discount!

 

[iloveyoga]

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.

+1