Most of us were raised in a world where we had to touch and feel our bills and statements. We received our monthly bills in the mail, opened the envelope, reviewed the information and set it aside to pay at a later time. When it was time to pay our monthly bills, we would review the bill, write a check and then enclose it in an envelope and mail the payment. Until very recently, that is all we knew – that is how we lived our lives.
With the creation of the personal computers and other personal electronic devises, and of course the internet, what we have always done may not be, today, the smartest way of handling our finances. It certainly is not the “greenest” way of handling our monthly expenses.
We should all be concerned about identity theft. It is known that some of the ways our personal financial information is obtained is through the theft of our paper receipts, bills and statements. Certainly bills can be shredded to protect against identity theft, but perhaps the real answer is not have your bill in paper form at all. The following are five reasons on why to keep your finances online…
My five reasons are:
1. You will eliminate your cost of paying bills with paper. If you pay ten bills a month, in postage alone you will save over $50 annually by switching to a bed-based payment method. That does not take in account the cost of your checks and envelopes. In fact, you may actually receive some rewards by signing up for paperless billing. I have to believe all banks and credit unions now offer bill paying services and if you are with a bank that does not, most likely your credit card company, mortgage or utility company takes payment right at their website.
2. You will not need to go to the post-office as often. Okay, this may not amount to a big savings, but keep in mind there is talk that the US Post Office is going to be delivering mail five days a week instead of six. The cost of gas is certainly a factor for all of us when deciding to drive now-a-days so the idea of not having to go to the post office and leave mail in an unattended box makes good sense. Continue reading →
