Procrastinator’s Guide to Bill Payment

Paying your bills on time is an important aspect of taking control of your financial life. Knowing when your bills are due and making a habit of paying them by the deadline can reduce your stress, save you money, boost your credit score, and enable you to get lower-interest credit in the future.

Taking control of bills can also help you keep your checking account balanced by making sure that bill pay-by dates are coordinated with your paycheck or other income sources.

But how do you start making on-time bill paying a habit? It’s easier than you may think.

Top 10 Ways to Prevent Late Payments

We’ve come up with a list of tips to help you stop paying your bills late. Let’s take a look.

Sign Up for Auto Pay

Most of your regularly recurring bills—utilities, mortgage, car loan, etc.—provide you with the option of having the amount you owe automatically deducted from a designated bank account. Make it easy by making it automatic.

Use Financial Software With Automatic Bill-Paying Reminders

There are many apps and software now available to help you manage your bills, make automatic payments, and set reminders.

Consolidate Bills

Say you get your Internet access, phone service, and cable TV from the same provider. Instead of paying three separate monthly bills, why not see if you can consolidate your billing to pay for all of the services you receive in one monthly statement? You’ll be less likely to miss a due date that way.

Schedule Bill-Paying Time

Carve out time on your calendar to pay bills on a regular basis in the same way that you schedule a time for the gym or work meetings. By setting aside a regular time to pay your bills, you’ll create a habit that will make you much less likely to miss a due date.

Create a Bill-Paying Location

Stuffing a bill into your purse or briefcase or throwing it on the kitchen counter when you come in from work are good ways to forget—and miss—the payment due date. Find a convenient place where you can keep and pay your bills.

Stock it with all the items you need for the process, including a computer and Internet access (if you pay bills online and/or use financial software), your checkbook, stamps, pens, envelopes, and a filing system to keep track of your paid statements. Then when it’s time to pay your bills, you’ll have a comfortable, convenient place to do so.

Organize Paper Bills

Your bills should be arranged according to the due date. Create a habit of noting the due date for a bill as soon as you open it (circling or highlighting it) and then put the date on your calendar. You may want a desk filing system where you can store bills according to due dates, so you have an immediate visual reminder of which bills need to be paid next.

Give Your Payment Time to Arrive

Check your statement or contact your creditors to find out how many days in advance they recommend sending in payment. It’s important to know how long it will take for your creditor to receive and process payment, especially if you are sending it in near a holiday or weekend. You want to meet or beat the deadline, not mail the check a day or two late. Paying online usually avoids this issue.

Learn Your Billing Cycle

Review several months’ worth of paid bill statements and list bills in the order that they are typically due. Most likely you’ll notice that your due dates are in one of two groups—ones due earlier in the month (e.g., the 5th) and those due later in the month (e.g., the 20th).

As soon as you receive your paycheck, pay the bills that are due before your next paycheck. If you don’t have enough money in your account to regularly pay all of the bills due before your next paycheck, contact your creditors to change a couple of your payment due dates.

Sign Up to Receive Bills or Bill Reminders via Email

Use email to your advantage. Check to see if your creditors provide online bill payment reminder features, or go paperless and have your bills sent to you electronically via email. When you receive the bill or reminder, use it as a prompt to log into your bank account and pay the bill, ensuring that you don’t miss the due date.

Use Your Phone to Pay

Many creditors allow account holders to pay their bills by phone for free or a small fee. If you regularly pay bills late, consider paying by phone instead. It’s more than likely that the fee charged for phone payment service will be less than the late fee.

Special Tip: Pay Your Bills in Advance

Can you pay your bills before they are due? Yes. If you have a really hard time making your payments on time, you might want to consider prepaying your bills to avoid those punishing late fees. Many creditors will allow you to pay your bills in advance, effectively creating a credit.

If you have irregular income, or if you find that you have some surplus cash, consider prepaying one or more of your recurring bills. That way you won’t have to worry about payment due dates for a few months. Just keep an eye on your monthly statements to know when you need to begin paying again.

Benefits of Paying Your Bills on Time

Raising Your Credit Score

There are several reasons why paying your bills on time matters. For starters, it helps you establish a good credit record and can boost your credit score. When you pay your bills on time, creditors report your good payment habits to the three main credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. The more consistently you pay your bills on time, the higher your credit score is likely to be.

Prospective creditors use your credit report and credit score to determine whether to approve your application, how much credit to extend (such as for a mortgage loan or line of credit), and how much interest to charge. The better your record and the higher your score, the more likely your future applications for credit are to be approved—and at a lower interest rate. 

Better Interest Rates

Not only will paying your bills on time help your credit score but it will also save you money. In addition to getting lower interest rates on your credit accounts, when you pay your bills on time you will not be charged a late fee or penalty.

You also won’t have to worry about triggering an interest rate hike. Check the fine print, particularly on your credit card agreements, and you will likely find that the company reserves the right to hike your interest rate considerably (for example, from 2.9% to more than 20%) for making even one late payment. And if the interest on your account is calculated daily, the sooner you make your payment the less interest you’ll have to pay. 

The Bottom Line

Paying your bills on time can reduce your financial stress. You’ll have no more wondering about whether you’ve paid a bill if you have enough money to cover the amount due (because you have other bills due as well) or how much you’ll have to pay in late-payment fees.

When you pay your bills on time, it will also be simpler to keep your checking account balanced because you should try never to write a check if you can't cover the amount. When bills are paid and accounts are balanced, you can rest easy knowing that your financial house is in order.

To get started, try executing just one or two tips, then incorporate a few more as you make bill-paying a habit and a priority. You’ll feel more confident about your ability to manage your finances and save money at the same time.