Is Automatic Bill Pay A Good Way To Make Bill Payments

Do you use your bank’s automatic bill pay service to pay your bills online? Despite, the popularity of automatic online bill payment systems — over half of Americans still write checks. I’m included in that population, although I do have an account with ING which is an online bank. In 2008, online automatic bill paying increased — over 3.3 billion people used automatic bill paying service to pay their bill online. One great feature about paying your bills online is the one time set-up. Meaning, you set-up your account to pay your car note (an example, with a fixed amount). Every month your car note payment will be automatically withdrawn and sent to the creditor. Nice, right? On the other hand, you must make sure your account has enough funds each month to cover your automatic withdrawal, or you will be bounces checks all over the place.

The advantages of automatic bill paying is obvious. To pay your bills online you don’t need stamps, envelops, and you avoid any late fees. The advantages of automatic bill pay can save you money in the long run, and give you peace of mind. However, there are disadvantages to automatic bill paying. One disadvantage discussed above is “bouncing checks” or what banks call overdrafts, which usually result in a penalty fee. Another disadvantage is for the lazy bookkeeper. Overcharges can happen, if you are using automatic bill paying services you should still reconcile your account each month to make sure everything is correct.

If you like the sound of automatic bill paying here are somethings you should do:

• Pay attention to your account
• Be selective – I would use a bank service, your bank primary. And on the creditor side, I would only pay creditor with monthly statements
• Keep a paper trail
• Print out the directions on how to stop the automatic bill paying — just in case something goes wrong

Did you know that you can use your credit card to make automatic bill payments? Well, you can. Using your credit card for automatic bill payments gives you about 30 days to correct any problems and your credit card statement can serve as you paper trail. However, went you use your credit card for automatic bill paying you should pay off the balance each month to avoid any interest fees.

Automatic Bill Pay

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Other Resources

• Online Budgeting Tools
• How To Transfer A Credit Card Balance
• Prepaid Credit Cards Information
• Credit Card Debt 101 – Clean My Credit Help