In the movie The Secret, one of the philosophers, Bob Proctor, stated that instead of worrying about debt we should all start thinking about how we can improve and grow our income. His suggestion was to set up payments to automatically go out from our banks, make sure the money is in our accounts, then never think about it again.
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While part of that is a bit scary, the part about not thinking about it, there might be something to setting up some payments to automatically go out from our banks to certain creditors. Let’s think about why we might do this.
These days, more companies are charging us for paper statements, trying to get all of us to set our billing up electronically. Sure, it saves them money, and we might get our bills sooner, but if you’re like me as it pertains to email you probably see it when it first comes in and then forget about it. Even those of us who have an idea of when our payments are due can easily miss a date because of this.
This is where setting up your account to pay some of your bills electronically might be a major benefit. Unlike the old days where it could take up to a week or more for payments to transfer, these days most payments actually show up in your creditor’s account on the same day your bank sends it. The longest you might have to deal with it is a couple of days, for which I don’t know a single creditor that’s true for, but I’ve heard that there are some that take a day to process your payments.
The negative is if your money situation is unstable, which means you’re not always sure that your money will be in your account. That and the worries about banking in places where your online access isn’t as secure as it might be at home could put you in a precarious position. Overall though, this is an efficient way to make sure your bills are paid if you don’t have any worries about money and don’t need to access your account too often when you’re not at home.
Because you’re doing it through your bank, the only thing they usually need from you is the name and account number of the institution you wish to be paid. After that, you select how much is paid and on what date and that’s pretty much it; you’re good to go. You can change either the amount or date whenever you want to; it’s pretty simple to do.
You could also set up payment arrangements directly with your creditor, but doing it through your own bank gives you more control over the process. Either way, it’s something to consider.
