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We are fully automated, almost all income and bills are automatic and online. Makes life simple, and we never miss a bill. I reconcile our accounts manually, once every two weeks to watch cashflow, and make sure there are no mistakes. Sometimes there are, but not on our end. I'm happy to see the bank reconciles and fixes them within a day or two, and they are fixed before I even notice, but I download everything during my reconcile.
As others mentioned, our Property Taxes are the only thing that is not automatic. I do it online when due.
Mostly via email online here, with a few mailed bills here and there. I pay virtually all the bills online though. I like the convenience of online banking, and since I can pay them as soon as they come in that way, I never forget to pay them.
All by mail (except for the Medicare supplement which is automatic and is an automatic deduction). I also and I pay them by mail with the previous exception and propane (in person, since the office is convenient) and Amex (by phone). I also pay phone, electricity, sewer bills three months at a time (estimated). I don't like using my checking account/debit card to pay for anything online. (This is due to past reports of the computer systems of various companies being hacked.)
The question is how will the executor of your estate access the online bills. How will they know they exist?
I would suggest letting said executor know of your login information ahead of time, or where he/she can access it. You could also provide the person with a written list of the information.
It can be tough otherwise. We knew of a woman whose husband took care of their finances and bills, with no involvement from her, she was not aware of the bills she had, nor their resources. The husband died suddenly, leaving her and the rest of her family scrambling for that information, and trying to gain access to it.
Almost entirely online, paid either auto-withdrawals from my bank monthly or I use a credit card for an online bill (in recent months I've started using Apple Pay for more security).
I was just thinking about this the other day when I saw a movie scene where a character was writing out a check & I couldn't remember the last time I wrote a check - for many years now I've written 1 or 2 checks per year. My supply of checkbooks will outlive me. Reminds me of the small pack of postcards I bought from the Post Office about 30 years ago just before email became ubiquitous & postcards became a dodo.
Paying online is ok, but autopay is a mistake for utilities like water, gas or electricity. It is good to review a bill each month that forces you to see the usage before you pay it. With autopay you may not realize you have a water leak (for example) for months.
Almost entirely online, paid either auto-withdrawals from my bank monthly or I use a credit card for an online bill (in recent months I've started using Apple Pay for more security).
I was just thinking about this the other day when I saw a movie scene where a character was writing out a check & I couldn't remember the last time I wrote a check - for many years now I've written 1 or 2 checks per year. My supply of checkbooks will outlive me. Reminds me of the small pack of postcards I bought from the Post Office about 30 years ago just before email became ubiquitous & postcards became a dodo.
I still use checks to pay contractors, never a credit card. How do you make a notation or reference an estimate or invoice with a credit card? That check provides a permanent written record of the transaction. Credit card, not so much.
Paying online is ok, but autopay is a mistake for utilities like water, gas or electricity. It is good to review a bill each month that forces you to see the usage before you pay it. With autopay you may not realize you have a water leak (for example) for months.
I only use autopay for fixed dollar amount monthly bills.
Before the days of smart meters, they had to come out and physically read electric and gas meters where I live (they still do for water). Both electric and gas meters were manually misread on more than one occasion, resulting in exponentially higher than normal bills. Easy enough to get corrected bills based on meter re-reads, but I shudder to think what would have happened if those erroneous excess charges had been auto-drafted from my account.
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