How to Tame Bill Paying

Are you still getting and paying bills by snail mail?  Grab a whip and a chair and we’ll teach you how to tame them.  Also learn about duck genitals!

Do you open your mail box to a flood of bills?  I hate that, not so much because I mind bills but because it’s more paper to keep track of and they cram so much crap in the envelopes. Before I started paying bills on-line I would send all the extra paper they sent me back to them with the check, ha!

There is no reason you have to be bothered with all those pieces of paper.  Most bills now allow you to opt out of getting a paper statement and will e-mail you a digital one.  You can pay these on-line.  It’s so much easier to keep track of digital “paper” than actual paper.  You probably don’t even need to make a folder for it, you can just log into your account and look at the back statements if you need to.

You can automate some payments too so you don’t have to do anything.  Just set up auto pay and your bank will send the payment.  You sometimes can’t do this with variable bills but for something like rent that doesn’t change often, you can automate it.

If you can pay a bill on a credit card, do it.  You will earn whatever reward your card offers, the credit card company will fight on your behalf if you dispute a charge, and it gives you fewer bills to pay.  To make it even easier, call up your credit card companies and ask them all to change your billing date to the same day.  That way when you sit down to pay it, you can do it all at once.

At LMM we always advocate simplifying your financial life.  Set up a system to automate your bill paying and spend the time saved doing something more fun than paying bills.

Show Notes

Stranger Pale Ale Left Hand Brewing:  A pale ale with citrus, hop notes.

Betterment:  Start investing today.

Mint:  Set up your budget.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices