Another piece of information I found very useful is from David Allen of ‘Automatic Millionaire’ fame. Setting up everything so that you don’t forget to pay anything. Realize, that I used to have a whole fistful of credit cards (in excess of 40 accounts at one time) with various balances across all of them. It was a MAJOR chore to make sure that all of them got paid, and paid the correct amounts. There were times where I paid the same credit card twice in a month, and completely forgot another credit card. (This was because both cards were from CapitalOne and I mixed up the accounts).

I’m what Dave Ramsey would call the ‘geek’ of the family, so back in 1998 I came across a new DotCom website called Billpay.com. This was the predecessor to the automatic payment systems most banks have today. However, back in 1998, it was brand new. People still didn’t pay bills automatically and the e-Bill was years away from common usage.

Where it All Began

Billpay, as a new startup company offered a TWO-YEAR free period for people that signed up for it’s service. Since I liked the word ‘free’ and I was geeky and willing to try new geeky things, I signed up. After I set up the bills, automated payment from my checking account and forwarded my bills to the pre-specified P.O. Box for Billpay (a requirement of the service), I never looked back.

I can say that I never had ANY problem with the system, and was wonderfully happy with how things worked out. I paid all my bills automatically and never had an issue with forgetting or missing a payment again.

Unfortunately, this happy story has a somewhat sad ending. After a little over a year, Billpay was acquired by another company who shortly changed the Terms of Service, and attempted to get me to pay for the service. ($14.95/month!!) Luckily, at around the same time Bank of America started up its’ on-line banking service with billpay, and I decided to go with them, since I already had an account. I had gotten the Automatic Bug, and could continue quite happily with another (free) service.

Today, I have everything automatically set up to be paid for every account except one of my utilities that still refuses to send out e-Bills. Not a missed payment or the associated penalty payments in over 8 years.