Top Ten Reasons to Use Online Bill Pay
It’s strange how the conveniences in our lives continually improve but we seem to constantly be on the run with more things to do. We no longer have to go to the store to rent movies, we can now have our groceries delivered to our door, and we can even hire life coaches to take care of the odds and ends we don’t have time for. Then there is the whole outsourcing concept. In all of our hustle and bustle, it’s important we take advantage of online bill pay, another added convince, which not only saves us time, but also saves our credit scores.
Credit Scores and Monthly Bills
A significant part of your credit score is your ability and history of making on-time monthly bill payments. Falling behind on a few monthly bills - which would ultimately be reported to a collection agency – will significantly affect your credit score. There is a perception that our credit history relies mainly on our current and future debt, and the importance of our monthly bills is downplayed. Although determined in a complex way, our credit scores can be maintained and improved mainly by being responsible consumers.
Online Bill Pay
Nearly all major banks now offer some kind of online bill payment system. If you are not familiar with these, they allow us to consolidate all of our monthly bills into one online source that makes paying our bills a breeze. I use Wachovia, which in my opinion has an excellent bill payment system. I use Wachovia to pay all of my bills, which saves me a lot of time and headaches. It literally takes about 5 minutes to pay my bills for the entire month. Below is what I consider the top 10 reasons to use online bill pay:
Top Ten Reasons to Use Online Bill Pay
1. No Postage Necessary. We no longer have to mail in personal checks – I can’t even remember the last time I bought more than one stamp.
2. Bill Reminders. Have reminders automatically emailed to you so you never miss a payment again.
3. Records. Every time you pay a bill using an online source, a copy is saved in their network, which makes record keeping a breeze.
4. Time is Valuable. Have you ever realized a bill is due tomorrow? Now it doesn’t matter, most bills will reach their destination either automatically or the following morning.
5. Credit Score. As I mentioned above, a missed bill payment can shave valuable points off your credit score.
6. Eliminate Paper Bills. Do you no longer eat at your kitchen table because it’s full of mail – this is the case with me. You can have your bills automatically sent to your bank account to eliminate the mailing of paper bills. Go green.
7. Organization. Within seconds you can see your list of bills, whether they have been paid or not and their due dates, all of which can easily be lost or forgotten otherwise.
8. Flexibility. Let’s say a bill is due in two-weeks but you will not have the money until a day before the due date. With online bill pay, you can easily set your account to pay the bill whenever is convenient for you.
9. Automatic Reoccurring Payments. Most people have a few bills where the amount never changes. With these, it’s easy to setup an automatic payment, which will pay the bill at the same time every month without us doing anything.
10. Because its 2008!
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Comments
Good post! I also like that you can access the information and pay bills from anywhere, not just at home.
We had problems with online bill paying once or twice, where the payment didn’t go through. But mostly it has been working very well for us. The convenience, compared with mailing a payment, is our main reason for doing that.