Is there a correlation between setting up automatic bill payments and disposable income?. I have always found it very hard to set up automatic bill payments. I try and try, but I always fail. I would rather wait until the money is in my checking account before I start paying the bills. Every time I have tried to set up automatic payments, it works out fine for a few months then I end up getting dinged for one or two overdraft fees. At which point, I promptly cancel the automatic payments. My income and bills fluctuate wildly from month to month. I just think for some people, like me, in the lower income bracket, it's almost impossible to successfully set up automatic bill payment and keep up with it without being dinged by overdraft fees at some point. There is just not enough disposable income left over to protect us incase a bill sails through unexpectedly.
I don't trust automatic payments, period. I'm like you...I feel more comfortable making payments knowing that the money is in the account, and I'm controlling it, not some computer program.
I've had glitches here and there with monies being debited in error by the bank, and had the automatic payments been in place, I would've had one hell of a mess. A returned payment to a creditor (a credit card company, for instance) can jack your rate to the default rate. The CCC won't care that your $14.95 check to somebody else was processed by your bank as $1495.00, they just know that your payment (made to them on the due date, automatically) bounced. Nobody needs that.
I don't know if disposable income has anything to do with it. You work with what you've got, whatever it is. But it'd be nice to have an account you could draw on that had enough cash in it that you could set up automatic payments from it forever, without having to look at the balance.
When you get to that point, give me a shout...I'll be your new best friend! 
Edit to add: BTW, I've always thought that the automatic payments thing was just another ploy by the banks to complicate our lives, not to make life easier like they advertise. The more things you don't have to remember to do, the more things you will forget to do. The banks' reward comes from the overdraft fees, the bounced payment ratejacks and late fees, or both. And they've got the perfect excuse for when it happens to you, because you set this stuff up yourself, so of course, it's entirely your fault, right?
Be very careful when banks try to "help" you in your life. They're almost as bad as the government.
It's not so much a correlation between the drafts and disposable income, but the ability to always have that amount of money on hand.
One possibility would be to set up two accounts, either both checking, or one checking and one savings, if you can do bill pay from savings. Pay your paychecks/ income into one checking account. Then figure out what your expected drafts would be per month, and always have that amount plus $100 in the second account from which you will draft. Keep that second account at the required amount, and let the first fluctuate.
But if you're not noticing when your checking balance is too low for a planned draft, you might need to back up first and get some better record-keeping going. I'm one of the few dinosaurs still treading this earth who keeps an old-fashioned check register. I only write 4 or 5 checks a year, but I record all my debit card use, ATM w/d's, online orders, and online bill pays in the register. I confirm it daily (yes, daily) with my online bank account.
And I never, ever believe what the phone or ATM machine says my balance is.
One possibility would be to set up two accounts, either both checking, or one checking and one savings, if you can do bill pay from savings. Pay your paychecks/ income into one checking account. Then figure out what your expected drafts would be per month, and always have that amount plus $100 in the second account from which you will draft. Keep that second account at the required amount, and let the first fluctuate.
But if you're not noticing when your checking balance is too low for a planned draft, you might need to back up first and get some better record-keeping going. I'm one of the few dinosaurs still treading this earth who keeps an old-fashioned check register. I only write 4 or 5 checks a year, but I record all my debit card use, ATM w/d's, online orders, and online bill pays in the register. I confirm it daily (yes, daily) with my online bank account.
And I never, ever believe what the phone or ATM machine says my balance is.
@haulingthescoreup wrote:
I'm one of the few dinosaurs still treading this earth who keeps an old-fashioned check register. I only write 4 or 5 checks a year, but I record all my debit card use, ATM w/d's, online orders, and online bill pays in the register. I confirm it daily (yes, daily) with my online bank account.
And I never, ever believe what the phone or ATM machine says my balance is.
+1
i don't trust automatic bill pay. i want to pay my bills on my schedule
haulingthescoreup wrote:
I'm one of the few dinosaurs still treading this earth who keeps an old-fashioned check register. I only write 4 or 5 checks a year, but I record all my debit card use, ATM w/d's, online orders, and online bill pays in the register. I confirm it daily (yes, daily) with my online bank account.
And I never, ever believe what the phone or ATM machine says my balance is. 
+ 2