Originally Posted by
Edie
I stash away enough every month in a separate account the house insurance, car insurance and property taxes, so when those dates come around I have the money right there and ready to pay. I pay by check for everything. I want to know what I spend the money on and who I made the check out to. I do NOT pay online, I do NOT have the money electronically taken out of our checking account and the bill paid. I want my hands on the money. I want to know that I paid the bill and I want my checking account monthly statement in my hands to see that the check has been cancelled.
I want to be able to handle the money the way I want to - NO debit cards - just cash in my wallet that holds my checks! Have been doing it like this since my husband retired back in '93 and have had no problems and yes, I do get chided for it but this is what works for me and my husband and he doesn't complain. If it "ain't" broke, don't fix it!!!
And it works for us!!!!!! Edie
That's fine if you want to do it that way but you better get informed about other methods of payment as many places will start charging if you don't do things electronically. Our neighber has a bank that will charge $10 monthly if she doesn't receive her bank statement electronically. She wouldn't mind getting it that way but at the present time, she doesn't have a computer. She has one of the free email accounts and I told her to have it sent there and access it through the library's computers(or mine). I resisted using debit cards as I was afraid of forgetting to keep track of the transactions. Now when I do a debit transaction I put the debit card and receipt in where I keep my dollar bills and that reminds me to enter the transaction into my checkbook registration. Works for me. I use debit cards all the time now.
The only bill payments I mail anymore are the water bills. There very few that are automatically withdrawn from my account as I like to do it myself. A little more work for me but I like having the control of when I pay. I don't miss all the work involved with mailing payments. I even receive most of my bills electronically now.