You should know by now that paying your bills late will give you bad credit and cost you money. Let’s consider a scenario; your utility bill is due tomorrow, and you forgot to get it in the mail today. You know you can get to the post office after work and just make the deadline for mail that will go out tonight and arrive at the utility company tomorrow. You make the deadline and go home relieved that you won’t have to worry about late fees and other charges that can so often be associated with situations like these.
The Late Payment Expense Breakdown
Let’s break down the expenses involved in this hypothetical situation, including the ones that you would have incurred even if you weren’t almost too late with the payment. First, there was the extra fuel involved in going out of your way driving home from work, then there’s the wear and tear on your vehicle; minimal, but still viable. And did this extra trip take up enough of your time that you won’t feel like cooking when you get home? So now there’s the extra expense of a take-out meal to go with the rest.
Now let’s add in the costs of things you bought that perhaps you didn’t need to. There’s the book of stamps, the pack of envelopes, the book of checks printed by the bank, and the writing utensil you used to fill out the check. Did you factor in the bill itself; the many pages of detailed information that explain how much electricity and gas you used in the last month? You’re paying for that too; it comes out of your fees.
So how many times a year do you think you waste money? Two?Three?
Sign up for Paperless Billing
Now let’s eliminate every single expense from that scenario, yet still get your bill paid, and on time to boot. First and foremost, sign up with your utility company for paperless billing. While this cost will not necessarily be passed on to you, it does save the company money in shipping costs, printing costs, and the trees needed to make the paper. Some companies offer discounts for this service.
Keep Your Credit up with Automatic Payments
Next, sign up for automatic payments. When this was a new concept, it was difficult for companies to keep track of notifications and a lot of customers would forget to deduct this from their expenses every month. But now, your company likely offers multiple notifications for either a discount, or just for the purpose of saving money (“Multiple notifications” means a message is sent to your e-mail – or multiple e-mail addresses – as well as your cell phone, and in some cases, even the Bluetooth receptor in your car).
These two steps paperless billing and automatic payments – will eliminate every single aspect of expense in the scenario described above. This doesn’t just represent savings for the utility company, but for you as well; you won’t use up envelopes, stamps, checks, or gas in case you forgot to get it in the mail. Those little savings add up. Better still, there are a ton of services on the internet that will remind you of upcoming automatic payments so you are aware of them well ahead of time.
