Paying your bills? Don’t worry about stamp prices or delivery delays
Use online payments. In mid-July the price of stamps went up for the second time this year. Paper checks — and the cursive handwriting you use to fill them out — are falling out of favor thanks in part to mail theft and delivery delays.
How they work. Utility companies, doctors’ offices and other service providers you use often offer an option to pay online through their websites. Just log in with your credentials and enter your credit or debit card information. This can be useful for occasional bills, such as a doctor visit.
For recurring bills, such as your mortgage or utilities payments, a potentially easier method is to use the bill-paying service your bank provides on its website and mobile app. There, you can enter the provider’s info, which is stored for future reference.
When you need to pay a bill, enter the amount and hit submit. The money is drawn from your account and the payment sent.
Are they safe? If you use the provider’s website, be sure to check the web address before paying a bill online.
It should contain a small padlock icon 🔒 next to the site name, and the URL should begin with “https” rather than “http.” These elements signal that your information is encrypted — and therefore safe — as it passes from your browser over the internet to the website’s server.
Bank websites are highly secure, for obvious reasons.
“When you pay bills online, there’s a digital record,” Kamber says. And you’ll have no paper check for someone to intercept.
A caveat. If you’re used to putting your check in the mail before having money deposited or transferred to cover it, online payments do away with that “float,” the delay between writing a check and having the money taken out of your account.
Tips. When paying on a company’s website or using your bank, you typically can set up automatic disbursements, helpful if the amount is stable, such as for internet service or cable TV.
“Just make sure there’s a little extra cushion in the bank account” to avoid overdrafts, Kamber says.
Another advantage to paying online, especially when using your bank’s service, is that you can schedule a payment’s exact date.
Managing your money? Take a look at the big picture
Use online financial programs. With the shutdown of the popular Mint personal finance app in March, many people are looking for a new option to see their overall financial picture.
How they work. Popular new solutions include online programs such as Monarch Money, Rocket Money and Simplifi. All can keep track of your account balances and help manage your spending. They’ll even alert you to streaming services and other subscriptions you have but may have forgotten about.
Security tip: Vet that app
Scammers count on confusion about the multitudes of finance apps in app stores and on websites to prey on people.
Before you download software and enter your financial information, check the app company’s reputation. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau logs complaints against companies, and the Federal Trade Commission issues alerts and warning letters.
“Credit cards don’t feel like real money, and now we have digital wallets and virtual ways to pay,” Woroch says. “You have no idea at the end of the month how much you spend and how much you owe. And that can get you into trouble.”
Using these tools, you can get an overview of your finances all in one place without having to log in to various accounts, she says.
Are they safe? These services use the same type of online security you’ll find from your bank, a standard called 256-bit encryption. But you’ll need to make sure that the logins for your overall service and each of your online financial accounts have strong, unique passwords to thwart hackers.
A caveat. To get that dynamically updating financial overview, you must link all of your bank, brokerage, credit card and other financial accounts to the service by entering your usernames and passwords.
“You grant the provider access to multiple financial accounts,” says President and CEO Anabel Perez of NovoPayment, a Miami-area firm that provides financial technology to companies. That means your banking accounts could be linked to this software, so “ensure you’re only giving that information to providers you trust.”
