I go away for short trips of about 3 weeks at a time.
What I don't want is a bill to turn up and then become overdue, we have someone checking the letter box and watering the garden. I have a laptop with Telsrta internet access so I can pay bills and make bank transfers.
My question is how many people have their bills online and can you cancel this and go back to paper bills.
SWMBO does not like bills on line, she likes to see the bill and stamp it paid (old fashion I know, happy wife happy life).
The person looking after the letter box is a friend so we don't mind them seeing the bills.
Did you mention to the boss that most paper bills these days come with an extra cost.
For most recurring bills like power water rates you can always prepay a bit every fortnight by B pay and then you never have a bill.
We have converted all our bill to direct debit from our bank , Most bills come in via email , But some come in by post not many , All these bills just let us know the amount and what date that the money will be deducted from our account , To easy don't get much mail these days works for us .
In Queensland you can now pay your rego by Direct debit this was the last bill that we had that wasn't direct debit , Now the whole lot is direct debit all you have to make sure there is money in your account at the time of the direct debit
Direct debit is the easiest way like Brickies above says. With some bills you can go in and pay up to 6 weeks in advance. eg. Rego. If you have bills that always have the same account number etc. you can pay money in anytime and then have a credit for when the bills come. I have done all three at different times. I have a record of what bills come in every month so know when each one is due. Cheers.
We do the same as Brickies plus I have made a folder up for each bill type in my email folder. I also like to mark them as paid, so when I receive a payment notice I let it sit in my email box until I know the direct debit has come out (just makes you keep an eye on things), I then "file" it into the appropriate folder, just like a filing cabinet. It is then always there if you want to review it or print it out. Hope that makes sense. We did this for our recent 5 month trip and it all worked fine.
SWMBO does all of our day to day accounting. As an ex Bank Johnie she feels that she is best qualified for the job & that suits me. She is more meticulous than me in those activities.
She doesn't like direct debit or eMail bills. Prefers paper bills & Bpay.
But we are gradually going over to DD for things like Health Insurance, and a few other regular monthly payments for things like insurances for cars, van & home. Where the bill is variable like power, rates & water, we prefer to get a bill & then pay it after checking (my job) rather than giving them a 'blank cheque' on DD.
Telstra now comes on eMail & I check and print it out & she does the bpay thing. We'll eventually move to paying that on line. Or at least that is my plan.
We only occasionally do E banking & never when using public hotspots or my mobile broadband, even though I use Kaspersky Safe Money.
Our neighbour collects the daily mail when we are away (I 'pay' him with a bottle of good red for his efforts) & if it is for an extended period our Daughter picks the mail up from him. She then goes thru the mail & discusses any action during our almost daily phone conversations. She then does the E banking/bill pay for us.
I changed all the regular bills to direct debit before my recent trip. You still get a copy of it (by email) well before they take the money so you can ensure its covered and dispute it if nec. If you want a paper copy, you can always drop into a local CRC and print it off or do it on your return. Its a good idea to start it well before your trip just in case there's going to be any glitches in the changeover. Also the money stays in your account right up until the due date so you get more interest.
I try to use direct debit from my Mastercard, then just have one amount to pay (this is also direct debit from bank account). Doing this keeps my money in the bank longer earning interest, and makes it easier to keep track of all bills.
I changed all the regular bills to direct debit before my recent trip. You still get a copy of it (by email) well before they take the money so you can ensure its covered and dispute it if nec. If you want a paper copy, you can always drop into a local CRC and print it off or do it on your return. Its a good idea to start it well before your trip just in case there's going to be any glitches in the changeover. Also the money stays in your account right up until the due date so you get more interest.
Norweb we travell 6 months per year but have a son at home who opens the bills takes a photo of the relevant details and sends to us via SMS. We then pay the bill online. Job done and the paper bill is at home for our return.
Alan
PS I won't do direct debit for anyone ever.
-- Edited by Brenda and Alan on Thursday 15th of September 2016 03:21:16 PM
I use a combination of BPay View and direct debit now. Electricity, Telstra, Gas, and Rego by automatic Direct Debit from a bank account. Rates and a couple of others by BPay View. I get all notifications by email and receipts by email in a mix of .pdt and .jpg; backup copies to the cloud and file in date order. Only Defence Service Homes left to convert to electronic notification. I put due dates in the computer calendar so I get a reminder to check payment was on time just as a confidence check. I found the set up of the direct debits and BPay view pretty easy to to and the lack of anxiety about maybe missing something is gone. I used Westpac for the bills account and no problems so far.
Son used auto feeder at his work to scan phone book size stacks of stored paper bills and have been able to get rid of several boxes of stored paper.
Iza
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Iza
Semi-permanent state of being Recreationally Outraged as a defence against boredom during lockdown.
Time are changing if you don't move with the time life will just get harder , When you direct debit and are online banking all payment are on your online statement easy to follow
We have our insurances as direct debit everything else is Bpay, you can adjust how much pay at each payment and still have the bills paid automatically each fortnight or month. All bills are emailed and put in a folder "BILLS" and then if we want to print them out we can. So much easier if we are not in a area where we have internet we know our bills will be paid before they are due. Our Bank statement is emailed to us and we can reconcile this with the bills at a later date if there is a problem. Only thing we get in the mail is crap now days and daughter check it and throws in bin for us.
All of our bills are automatically direct debited to our credit card, earning points, which convert to a $10.00 deduction off at the cash register. Save many hundreds of dollars doing it this way.
Credit card is then direct debited to our cheque account. Tricky bit is ensuring that the funds are in the cheque account on the day.
