Payment Preferences: Autopay or Manual?

[joltdude]

Not a fan of autopay for CC.. too unpredictable.... 

What I currently do for CCs

Pay the minimum rounded up as soon as the bill generates..

Make one or two more payments in the month as pay comes in...

Also still have tally that will autopay a minimum roughly 3 days before its due if i *forget* it... 

Comes out of its own LOC though. 

-J

[Revelate]

Autopay minimum: this prevents 99% of any payment inconsistency imo.

TBH the only times I have gotten in trouble with regards to my credit is on an account which explicitly did NOT have an autopay function.

No matter how badly I wandered off life's social reservation the autopay strategy worked flawlessly... and I'd still be north of 800 everywhere on FICO 8 (and probably 820 actually) if I didn't have that damned account without autopay, now closed but with lates on it.

Never, not once, has autopay screwed up over hundreds of iterations when talking all my lenders combined.  Use with confidence, and I will never ever get an account which does not support autopay.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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I agree with that sentiment, however that is also where my hesitation on autopay becomes a factor. Although you're examining for errors, you may pay the higher bill for the error and then they may not be in as much of a rush to credit you the difference due to having already collected their requested funds.

Whereas if you catch an error manually, you can simply submit a payment for the proper amount and let the difference linger until they correct on their side. Generally the difference should be nominal, I'd be wary of the off chance of a larger error/mistake.

I suppose that is where a financial cushion of some sort (emergency savings, self-funded overdraft excess funds in checking, etc) would step in and help float through until the issue is resolved and a credit is issued.

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Take a look at the recommendation of many of the folks on this thread, however, to use autopay and set it for the minimum payment.  This addresses your concern while still giving you the protection from ever having a late payment.

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For credit cards, I do have them all setup to autopay the minimum to ensure that there aren't late payments in the event that I happen to forget (hasn't happened yet, but there's always that chance).

I was mainly referring to something like cable/internet bills, as those generally only allow PIF options. But as mentioned in a post below yours, I hadn't been accounting for the time allotted between receiving bill and them pulling the payment (usually 20-25 days with my utilities). I do generally look into them when they are generated, or a few days after, so I suppose the autopay wouldn't be a problem generally with them either. I know it's common, to me at least, to review bill upon receiving it as opposed to at the time of payment... but for some reason that hadn't occurred to me in the sense of the autopay for utilities. I generally pay the date of receiving the bill (as there has never been an error yet, fingers crossed) and had been thinking that they'd pull payment upon generating bill. I hadn't been thinking of them almost always pulling autopays on due date, giving you the time for reviewing bills.

Thanks for the insight that you and MakingProgress had brought up. Again, regular occurrences, however simply hadn't crossed my mind while debating autopay.

[Anonymous]

I've always hated autopay and have only done it for items that offer a discount for doing so. (Car insurance & Cell phone.)

Every payday I make sure everything with due dates occurring before the next payday is paid. I've never had a late payment that wasn't intentional.

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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For credit cards, I do have them all setup to autopay the minimum to ensure that there aren't late payments in the event that I happen to forget (hasn't happened yet, but there's always that chance).

I was mainly referring to something like cable/internet bills, as those generally only allow PIF options. But as mentioned in a post below yours, I hadn't been accounting for the time allotted between receiving bill and them pulling the payment (usually 20-25 days with my utilities). I do generally look into them when they are generated, or a few days after, so I suppose the autopay wouldn't be a problem generally with them either. I know it's common, to me at least, to review bill upon receiving it as opposed to at the time of payment... but for some reason that hadn't occurred to me in the sense of the autopay for utilities. I generally pay the date of receiving the bill (as there has never been an error yet, fingers crossed) and had been thinking that they'd pull payment upon generating bill. I hadn't been thinking of them almost always pulling autopays on due date, giving you the time for reviewing bills.

Thanks for the insight that you and MakingProgress had brought up. Again, regular occurrences, however simply hadn't crossed my mind while debating autopay.

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Why not set your utility bills to autopay with one of your credit cards?  Autopay PIF the utility with the credit card, then autopay minimum on the credit card bill?

I've been able to do that with a slew of different utility type services over the past 15 years, would think nearly everyone has an autopay with credit card function given how dirt cheap their merchant services fee is.

[Anonymous]

And for those accounts that doesn't accept credit cards or charges fees like some utility, mortgages or water/sewer, you can setup autopay to a checking account.

[UncleB]

I'm still stuck in the past... I pay everything manually.

Years ago when I was still only using debit, I signed up for EarthLink DSL service, only to get a call that they couldn't service my location.  No big deal, I had them cancel the order.  However there was an error when the order was canceled and my debit card was hit with a $400 cancellation fee.

I called right away - and they immediately saw the error and corrected it - but it wreaked havoc on my finances until the credit finally came though (which was a couple of weeks later).  This made me leery of giving anybody direct access to my money again.

A few years after this I got another 'wake-up' call with a phone bill that was just over $1k.  Thankfully I didn't have any auto-pay set up and I was able to get it corrected before they got my money, since being out the funds would have really caused a problem.

I'm not quite as financially "fragile" these days, but the lessons learned years ago aren't quickly forgotten.  Unless there's overwhelming motivation for doing so, I'll continue to pay my bills manually and I'll rest easy knowing exactly what's going on with my money.

[Late2theGame]

For CC I highly recommend Auto Pay minimum, but with a manual PiF before it ever kicks in. I have experienced inconsistencies with auto pay and never trust them to do there job. However, I also have 1 account with a 30 day and a 60 day late because I was off the reservation and didn't do my job.