Hell yeah for automation!

I was just reading a post by No Credit Needed entitled Automated And It Feels So Good and it excited me. I have had my finances automated for really for as long as I have been working which is just over 20 years. Back then, there was no online banking. I used to use a service called TelPay and I had to pay a small fee for every payment that I made. It wasn't very popular, no one I knew used the service. As a matter of fact, not many of my peers even knew what it was before I mentioned it. But for me this was a little slice of heaven for two reasons - I am not the most organized person in the world (but I am working one it) and I am a huge procrastinator (that I am not working on as much). The result is that I used to receive bills, put them aside to pay at a later date and then lose them or mistakenly throw them away. As I result, I used to waste hundreds of dollars a year in late fees and similar penalties. TelPay didn't cover ALL my bills but it was a better system than what I was using at the time.

Then I discovered mBanx and it revolutionized my life. I have always been a shift worker so my hours of work, sleep etc. have always been different the rest of the regular working world. With mBanx, it released me from the bonds of having to bank from 10 am to 3 pm like the rest of society. I could now do my banking at 3 am whenever I felt like it and I really never needed to physically go to a bank. I could pay a bill when it was received or at the very least, I could set up a later payment for when payday rolled around and file the bill right away. (For a while there I felt really organized but have since slipped).

Like No Credit Needed I also receive as many of my bills as I can online. I have also in the last year set up my pay stubs from work to be viewable online only. It is unfortunate that every one doesn't have this option. For 3 years I just received the stubs in my mailbox at work, looked at it and then threw it in the backseat of my car. Eventually, I got tired of the mound of envelopes and then recycled them. But sometimes you need a current stub for bank stuff, so that was not the best system. Now I send myself a PDF copy every two weeks and if I ever need a copy, I can print it anytime - at home or at work.

I was explaining my system to my 64 year old mother who still waits for bills to arrive and then sends cheques. I tried to convince her to set up some automated payments for bills where the amounts don't vary much from month to month but she won't even hear of it. She only trusts her cheque system. And that is her choice and she is happy with it. Her main concern is that there will be a difference and they will have more of her money than the amount of the bill and similarly that she will underpay.

I basically take the amoung of a bill, cut it in half and then pay that every two weeks. For example hydro is roughly $300 a month so every two weeks, I pay $150. Some months like this month have three paydays so I will be $150 ahead. I am sure that some where through the year, I will need that $150 and will adjust that weeks payments so that no payment will be made and I will no longer be $150 ahead. When I exlained this to my mom, she was appalled that I would let them "hold" my money like that. Really, it is not ideal. But for me as someone that has a credit past of late payments for no other reason than that I'm stupid, it is a small price to pay to make payments in good time.

So for the extremely organized and for those of us that are just not that motivated. Automating your banking life is the way to go for sure!