How do you pay your bills?

[tjscraps]

It's pay day for both hubby and me today - I really hate when our paydays match up, he gets paid biweekly and I get paid once monthly, so when they match up on the same date it seems like we think we have more money than we do and we spend frivolously and away it goes lol.

Since it's payday though, it's also bill paying day - it made me think, how does everyone else pay their bills? Automated? Manually? Automatic withdrawal?

We used to do automatic withdrawal to our credit card for any bill we could, so that we could get the points and I would pay that off on bill paying day instead of to the companies. A lot of places started charging a fee for that so now I pay them manually once a month. Things like our mortgage, insurance, car payments all come out of our account automatically. I've also started treating 'savings' like a bill and transfer over money to different little accounts in an attempt to save money for gifts/Christmas, vacations, etc. DH only looks at the chequing account, and he's a spender - so if it's not in that account and he thinks things are tight he won't spend as much lol

 

[BevG]

Almost the regular bills are set up for automatic payment. Most go to the credit card since we get cash back on our Costco card. Some are direct withdrawals. Our credit card is also set to be paid in full each month. Mortgages are not automated but are paid online (I have to manage account balances before paying). The only thing I write checks for are the occasional bill and our church tithe/offerings.

I am the spender in our family. I have a separate credit card I use for Paypal purchases. I track all expenses in Quicken. I have spent over $3,400 here at The Lilypad since I started in 2016. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

 

[HavaDrPepper]

Auto withdrawal for electric, internet/cable, real estate taxes on a monthly basis from one checking account. Cell phone auto withdrawal from a different checking account. Auto transfer of funds from 1st checking to 2nd checking to cover cell phone bill (and that's my play money account for purchases here...). I started the taxes many years ago and it really helps with the budgeting process. Instead of one huge amount twice a year, it is broken down to 12 monthly more reasonable payments. No mortgage or car loans here.

I schedule credit card payments, usually even before I get the bill. Some monthly subscriptions are charged to the credit card automatically.

Insurance payments are paid annually and I will schedule them to come out of my checking. I do have a couple of local things that I write checks for as needed.

My "paychecks" are auto deposited to my checking account. Investment checks same dates every month unless it falls on a weekend. Social Security is a specific day/week of the month so date changes each month. Every 3 months I transfer some to my savings

 

[dotcomkari]

Right now hubby pays all the bills since I am out of work sadly. He pays bills mostly manly since he hates autopsy. He does it through phone service. He calls up our cable or electric and pays using his bank account that way.
And our phones are through t mobile and are track phones and are reloaded monthly online .. so that's pretty simple as well. And rent is paid to my father who is my land lord when ever throughout the month..he doesn't mind if we are late.

 

[umyesh]

Ours are all automated. One less thing to worry about!

 

[tjscraps]

I am the spender in our family. I have a separate credit card I use for Paypal purchases. I track all expenses in Quicken. I have spent over $3,400 here at The Lilypad since I started in 2016. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

I've done that math before. I used to add up all my paypal transactions for scrapping stuff and then divide by the number of pages in the year to find an average per page. Wasn't really accurate as I scrap more with CT stuff than stuff I buy. I like to have all the pretty stuff lol

I have Quicken but I'm really bad at actually categorizing everything - I use it to pre-plan and for cash flow!

Auto withdrawal for electric, internet/cable, real estate taxes on a monthly basis from one checking account. Cell phone auto withdrawal from a different checking account. Auto transfer of funds from 1st checking to 2nd checking to cover cell phone bill (and that's my play money account for purchases here...). I started the taxes many years ago and it really helps with the budgeting process. Instead of one huge amount twice a year, it is broken down to 12 monthly more reasonable payments. No mortgage or car loans here.

I schedule credit card payments, usually even before I get the bill. Some monthly subscriptions are charged to the credit card automatically.

I transfer money into a separate account for property taxes biweekly too - it auto-transfers on the same day hubby is paid, so that by July 1st when it's due it's all saved up. I really need to start that with insurance to save there (I know you're charged more for monthly payments).

 

[amien1]

It's payday here too! I just did our budget/paid bills- I use an excel spreadsheet for our spending. It's super nice to know what's coming in & out & that all the bills are paid, or what's left to clear the accounts. Most of our bills are on autopay, but some do go on our rewards visa, so I have to transfer $ from our BILLS checking to the visa. We actually have 2 checking accounts & about 10 savings accounts. It's nice to have separate buckets for each thing- both kids savings, vacation, house/taxes, car repairs, don't touch savings, specific account for whatever is next we're saving for- currently for a down payment for a car- probably hubby's next car, as my daughter is 15 and will be a driver in the next year or so. We have a BILLS checking & a PLAY checking- so that the bills are always paid & when we run out of PLAY $$, we can't play any more! lol! On payday, I check to see what the account balances are, transfer everything around to the appropriate savings and pay off whatever balance is on the visa.

 

[littlekiwi]

Some are automatic like Adobe, Microsoft, Backblaze, my cell provider etc which is why they were having heart attacks over the last couple of weeks while I had no visa debit card. Others like the prepaid electricity bill and phone/internet bill which I pay on behalf of my mum in lieu of a weeks room and board I try and line up so that my mum and I both have enough left in our bank accounts for the week.

 

[michelepixels]

We still haven't automated much because several years ago we were living paycheck to paycheck and I guess even though I have a good paying job now, we're more comfortable manually paying bills. We do it digitally though, on the bank website. I haven't written a check in several years. And we pay them all at once, right after my husband's paycheck is deposited (we both use direct deposit), sitting down to do it together.

 

[ninigoesdigi]

Most of our bills are debited from our bank accounts (phone/internet, electricity, water). When it's hubby's pay day - he's the one with the bigger pay check lol I save for travelling and leisure... but mostly travel cause I am French and he is Korean so going back home is another level when you live in Japan lol - I wire money to the morgage account, the visa card account and the everyday life account. I leave out some money for car maintenance, house savings (hoping some day I can repay it all earlier) and such and the rest goes to the life spending account. If I don't leave out some money from the start we do too tend to spend more than we should lol Better to save a bit from the source and forget about it. I've been doing that for quite some time now and my saving plan seems to be working.
With all the online banking and phone apps it's really easy to check your balance and make wire transfer/payments for free (if it's the same bank).

 

[HavaDrPepper]

We have a BILLS checking & a PLAY checking- so that the bills are always paid & when we run out of PLAY $$, we can't play any more! lol!

I set up my 2nd checking account to connect to Paypal and I keep no more than $200 in it. If Paypal/this account would get hacked, they aren't going to get a lot. And, it is at a different bank than my main accounts. When I worked I had $25 deposited to it from my paycheck every week. The rest went to the main checking. That gave me scrapping money and money for the cell phone bill. When I retired I just set up a monthly transfer from my main checking that hits the other account 4 days before the cell phone bill is paid. I also use that account for any digital books or music I get from Amazon. When it gets low, no more scrapping goodies get bought!

 

[littlekiwi]

We still haven't automated much because several years ago we were living paycheck to paycheck...we're more comfortable manually paying bills.

I am much the same....as someone who has only ever had weekly pay from either a job or welfare, I just find it easier to keep on track if not everything is automated - saves any nasty surprises hopefully

 

[littlekiwi]

We have a BILLS checking & a PLAY checking- so that the bills are always paid & when we run out of PLAY $$, we can't play any more! lol!

Thats a great idea, I'm thinking of setting up similar with a different bank than I'm with now when I move out of home. My worst fear is running out of money for the absolute essentials!

 

[SeattleSheri]

I am the household financier, so I do whatever is most convenient/lowest cost depending on the bill. For us, the timing of payment is always dictated by the due date of the bill. I review my accounts monthly to make sure all charges are appropriate. I usually get notifications when they are paid too.

 

[Memaw2Wm]

At the beginning of each year I set up auto payments from my bank accounts to pay my monthly rent and my daughter’s health insurance premiums. The rest of my monthly bills are paid as I receive them via my banks online bill pay. My Netflix and Disney+ streaming services are charged to a credit card. I’m weird and only “push” money … no auto debits from my checking account.

 

[IntenseMagic]

Since I get paid once a month, I get online within a day or two of payday and just go through and manually pay them all. I have a couple I have to deliver or mail, but the rest are online. My cell phone and car insurance come out of the bank automatically because they give me a discount for auto pay

 

[tjscraps]

We still haven't automated much because several years ago we were living paycheck to paycheck and I guess even though I have a good paying job now, we're more comfortable manually paying bills. We do it digitally though, on the bank website. I haven't written a check in several years. And we pay them all at once, right after my husband's paycheck is deposited (we both use direct deposit), sitting down to do it together.

I'm more comfortable manually paying too - then I get to choose what day and make sure there's no big errors. When we'd been married about 5 years (so like 12 years ago) we had an auto-payment on our first house that kept going through for about 6 months after we sold the house, so I'm leery now as it took forever to get them to stop. I haven't written a cheque in years either - e-transfer is key here! And I had to laugh about you and hubby sitting down to pay bills together - hubby always tells me if I die before him he's screwed, he has no idea how to pay a bill online lol.

 

[bestcee]

I do the physical paying of the bills. Usually, I will pay all the bills biweekly when the paycheck goes in. Some, because I hate the company, but have to deal with them, I will pay two days before it's due and not a minute sooner. It's my little rebellion. But, we have a budget meeting about once a month to see if there's any money goals we want to change, or new categories we want to save for. I don't have anything that comes directly out of the checking account, on autopay. I will go in and pay using the checking account if it's a company that charges extra for using a credit card. Otherwise, everything goes on our credit cards because they are easier to replace than debit cards when the numbers get stolen. When, because we replaced our debit cards 3 times in 2020, and 1 in 2021. I can't remember the last thing that went on our debit cards now.

Anything autopay goes to a credit card. I don't trust autopay fully since I've had issues in the past - double pulling, with no refund just an account credit. A credit is fine and dandy, but not when you took $600 instead of $300! Nothing to the checking account gets autopaid. I do have to write checks to the piano teacher. And sports activities. And the school. I write more checks now than I used to in the past 10 years or so.

We use a budgeting software, YNAB, instead of using our checking accounts to see if there's money. It's basically the envelope system with the convenience of cards and online transactions. It reminds me when bills are due, so I pull it up and pay them. If there's no money in the envelope, there's no money to spend on that thing.

 

[bcgal00]

We have a savings acct where we put money to cover the yearly property tax (which is soooo expensive here) and any big extra expenses that come up but monthly bills come out of our chequing acct which we pay thru online banking. I like our bank app that tells me when and what I last past to each so I don't mistakenly double pay, although that rarely happens, but is still nice to have that info come up when I go to make a payment. Car insurance and car payment are automatic withdrawals monthly. Credit cards we try to pay off quickly so we don't get interest.

We are much better organized than we used to be and by that, I mean ME. I used to always be late or forget payments and then would get phone calls and reminders.

 

[Pachimac]

Not very well lately. Too much month left over!