I need an automated bill paying method, NOT automatic deductions from checking account.

I'm looking for a reliable and safe way to pay bills every month WITHOUT authorizing Company A to take what they want from my checking account.

The reason I don't allow companies to take the amount they want is because companies make mistakes. And I don't want to see my account wiped out or pay another company late after one company accidentally takes 4 times more than they should.

1 or 2 of my bills won't bill my credit card monthly. Almost all of my bills have varing amounts due month to month so I can't set anautomatic payment to be sent from my bank monthly.

In the past I tried having my bank automatically pay Company A some amount a little larger than the normal bill amount. If I forgot to change the amount from the over-pay amount to the exact amount, at least my bill was paid in full on-time. Eventually I lose track of which month has been paid and/or the company sends me a check in the amount of the overpaid balance.

Now I have my bills sent electronically and try to pay them on the day I get notice. But, still I forget, or almost forget once every few months. I like paying by credit card and then paying the credit card bill. What is a better way?

 

I do all my banking with US Bank, via their electronic bill pay, you can link them to many creditors, so that in addition to getting an ebill from the creditor/company, US Bank will also send me an alert that I have a pending Ebill. When I open the US Bank mobile app or website, and go to Pay Bills, it will show me ebills I have pending.

There are other banks that do this also.

 

I always use the autopay option provided by the seller whether it is with a credit card or ACH. Frankly it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s a credit card or ACH. I always check my bank statements every 1-2 months. Any fraud is refundable by the bank, but must be reported within 3 months and the amount protected has a limit of just a little over 100k. All banks are different. So you want to check with them. So far, I haven’t detected any “fraud.” I have, however, noticed annual or monthly payments that weren’t supposed to be active anymore. Most of them were my fault for not closing the account/subscription on time.

I remember over 10 years ago that I would have my bank mail out checks, but that was when autopay still wasn’t available everywhere. Now, it’s rare for a company to not offer some sort of autopay. It’s so easy to not have to worry about missing a payment (again!). All you have to do is make sure that your bank is always fully funded.

The main reason why I go over my bank statements is because I want to make sure I didn’t miss any business expenses that I need to send to my bookkeeper. I usually find a few that I missed.

 

Open a separate checking account for those bills and keep enough to cover them but nothing excessive.

 

send me all of your bills and your paychecks every month and i will manage them for you with a 10% commision based upon the total price of the bill

 

If auto pay options won't work set yourself a reminder.

 

I can't even remember the last time I paid anything other than a credit card bill. I've got accounts at 3 different banks and money gets transferred from the primary to the secondary and tertiary accounts and then the bills are automatically paid from there. Direct deposit, automated bill pay...money is hardly even a concept anymore.

 

I'm going to make an assumption here that your talking about personal finances. I think you're making things too complicated. Every bill can be paid online nowadays and you can have total control over the payments.

1) Cut up your credit cards
2) Set up auto-pay for every bill that is the same amount
3) Use the calendar on your smart phone. Enter the due date for recurring bills that aren't the same amount each month into your calendar on your smart phone and use the reminder feature so you get a notification, and pay those online every month. I check my calendar daily. I think most people do. Do the same for one time bills.

Actually I don't understand why you don't set up auto-pay for every monthly recurring bill? Even if it's a bill that is a different amount every month.

If you don't like auto-pay use option 3 to pay all your bills on-line.

 

That’s what I’m trying to achieve.

 

Thanks for the advice. I do pay all recurring bills online. Everything but water, electricity are billed to a credit card. Then I pay the credit card bills online. I use the emails from billers to remind me to go to my online bank and and then enter the payment amount.

The few autopay bills I allow bill to a credit card. If a biller screws up and bills me $800 for Netflix, we’re arguing about the credit card company’s money, not my cash. My water and electric companies don’t bill credit cards.

I’m leaning toward a separate checking account at another bank and transferring a month’s worth of cash from my primary checking account.

I don’t have ANY credit card debt or a temptation to create any. Credit cards are just a convenience & organization device for me.