Rounding Up To Pay My Bills
Before I get to the point in this blog where I start sharing my bills and paying of those bills, I want to explain a little bit about how I work my finances. First of all, I overpay nearly all my bills including cell phone, electricity, and cable. I find this just makes it easier to balance my checkbook and keep track of things. Also, it occasionally helps due to the fact that I might not have to pay or pay as much on a given month.
The other thing that I do that helps with this is that when I pay my bills, rather than writing the check for a random odd amount, I write them in increments of (usually) $50 or $100. I know that perhaps the additional money (sometimes up to $40) that goes to a company that won’t pay me any interest and only goes towards my next month’s bill could be better put to use in paying down debt, but my thought is that it all comes out in the end and that the small amount of interest on $40 for a month is probably not going to make much of a difference in the long-run.
I say for only a month because that is going to be $40 less that my bill will be next month and could be the difference between a $60 bill (which I might send $75 or $100) and a $20 bill which I would pay with a $25 or $50 payment, thus freeing up extra money to be sent to my debts while keeping everything in the nice round numbers.
Why did I feel the need to share this seemingly mundane information about the way I pay my bills? Because I have a few bills on my desk that need to get paid relatively soon and I wanted to answer in advance some questions that may surface when I post on doing so.
that’s an interesting tactic! never heard of it being done that way (rounding up to the nearest dollar, yes…but not the way you do it). i’m interested in seeing more of how this works for you. like i’ve always said…if it works for you, then stick with it!
If you are doing this with a mortgage, you can be specific about what to do with the excess payment. There’s usually checkboxes for paying down the principal, paying part of next month’s mortgage, putting additional money in your escrow fund, etc.
If you have any interesting tips, I’d appreciate posting them on my sites money saving tips section.
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