Day 3: Pay Your Bills Online

Welcome to day three in our Month of Savings series. Today we are going to talk about the potential savings of paying your bills online or via routes other than the traditional snail mail.

I have been paying my bills online for a few years now and I love the service that I am using. Today most banks will offer bill-paying services for free, but my bank still charges to pay my bills for me. I have had to enlist the help of a third party to help me keep track of my bills and to make my payments on my behalf.

I use MyCheckFree.com, and I have been with the company for almost four years now. I have never had a late payment and I have never had any unauthorized activity on my account. If I am unable to pay them through MyCheckFree.com, I do try to set up online payment through the companies website directly.

What benefits are there to paying your bills online? Well, for one you can be saving money on stamps and envelopes. With the cost of stamps continuing to rise, it is great to be able to save money on this and just pay your bills online or by calling into the companies to have the money taken out of your account.

Another great reason to sign up for online bill paying is because many lenders offer a discount if you sign up for the automatic payments to your account. I have seen these discounts offered through mortgage providers and through student loan companies. Of course, with the automatic payments, you will need to make sure that you have money in your account to make the payment. If your account is not stable or the timing is of the essence, it might be more in your favor to avoid setting this up and the fees that could come up with not having enough money in your account.

Here are some free bill paying options that you can take advantage of:

Capital One CustomersSimplify your life with Online Bill Payment Service from Capital One. Pay as many bills as you want, on time—guaranteed—without the hassle of stamps or writing checks.

  • It’s free—pay as many bills as you’d like per month at no charge
  • Bill Payment Guarantee1 —rest assured your bill will be paid on time
  • Secure Site- Capital One is committed to providing safety and security when paying your bills online.
  • Pay any individual—even the babysitter or any U.S. business
  • Schedule payments—to be taken out of your account the day they are due
  • Set up once—set up single or recurring monthly payments one time
  • Track payments automatically—records and tracks your payments for you
  • Pay bills when it’s convenient—payments can be made 24 hours a day, seven days a week
  • View your online payment history—know when your bills have been processed

MyCheckFree.com– This is the free bill-paying service that our family uses. You can receive and pay your bills in one easy and safe location. Payment processing begins as soon as you, “Click to pay,” and every payment is 100% guaranteed to get there when it is supposed to. You can set payments up to be taken out automatically or you can just set them up as you receive the bills. The bills come directly to your email and you can print out the bills for your financial records or keep them stored on their site.

If you don’t feel comfortable allowing a third party to handle your bills, you can go to each of the websites for your bills and sign up directly with them.

If online payment is just not for you, many companies offer a call in service where you can dial in and make your payment via phone with a representative or through an automated service. Most payments will be processed immediately upon calling in, but be sure to find this out when making your payment so it is not late.

The important thing is that you eliminate the stamps, eliminate the paperwork coming into your house and eliminate the late fees that occur from missing a payment.

AOL Bill Manager Plus Bill Manager Plus with Spending Alerts is a FREE service for bill management and bill payment. Bill Manager Plus also helps you easily maintain a budget and protect yourself from identity theft and fraud.

Bill Manager Plus With Spending Alerts lets you:
· Get e-bills from over 4,400 supported billers & banks.
· Securely receive and pay bills using a single password — right from your e-mail inbox.
· Automatically add bill due dates to your calendar.
· Track monthly expenditures with easy to read charts.
· Avoid late fees with bill reminders.
· No other bill pay service allows you to manage and pay your bills directly from your e-mail inbox.
· Other bill pay services don’t offer you Spending Alerts — designed to protect you from fraud.
· Credit card and banking alerts enable you to monitor suspicious activity and large transactions
· Cell phone minute alerts allow you to avoid monthly-minute overage fees from your cellular provider. You’ll always know when you’re dipping into that pricey talk time!

NetBank– NetBank’s online bill pay and consolidated bill statement removes all the hassles of paying and reviewing your bills. Get your bills in one place.

-Pay bills anytime, anywhere
-Get an email notice when you have a new bill
-Simply point and click to pay new bills
-Helps you avoid checks, stamps, and trips to the post office
-Get access to online bill pay with any NetBank Checking account
-Schedule repeating payments so you won’t forget to pay a bill
-Free if used at least once every 3 months or if the average monthly balance in your bill payment checking account is $3,000 or greater
-Keep an online record of payments for 6 months
-Organize all your bills in one place
-Get account balances, minimum payments, and payment records
-Integrated with online bill pay so you can view and pay your bills instantly

PNC Bank Online– No more checks, envelopes, stamps or trips to the post office. Online Bill Pay eliminates all that paperwork and saves you time – on average two hours a month – and you can click and pay with confidence. Your information is protected by advanced PNC security technology.

Wells Fargo– Offers free bill paying services to their customers, but only if you have certain types of accounts and maintain a cert
ain balance in your checking account. See this page for details on what accounts qualify.

Potential Savings- $10 each month (and more if you are usually late on bills!)

Related Readings:

CheckFree Works for Me!
Friday Freebie: CheckFree

Sound Off: Do you use a third party for paying your bills or does your bank offer free bill paying services?

Published August 03, 2007 by:

Amy Allen Clark is the founder of MomAdvice.com. You can read all about her here.

comments powered by Disqus