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Online banking is so appealing because it makes your life easier. You don't have to worry about keeping track of paper statements, checks to deposit and when your bills are due.
Automating your finances is easy and can save you money, time and stress. If your finances aren't automated, you're missing out on time you could be doing other things — like living your life.
Here are five ways to automate your finances.
- Recurring Utility Payments
Many utilities and services offer automatic monthly payments, from your cable provider to the electric company. Some even offer discounts for signing up. Don't get hit with late payment fees — have the money deducted automatically from your billpay account. - Automatic Savings Deposits
Force yourself to save for retirement, emergencies or a house by setting up automatic transfers to a high-yield online savings account at the beginning of the month. Treat your savings like any other bill, and you'll have a nice little chunk of change before you know it. - Direct Deposit
Most people have access to direct deposit, but did you know that those who use it save $90 more monthly than those who don't? You don't have to worry about carrying around paper checks and won't lose interest while the money isn't in your account when you're using direct deposit. - Automate Your Debt Payments
Every month, the payment toward my school loans gets automatically deducted from my checking account by the Department of Education. The even better part is that because I'm using automatic payments, my interest rate gets an automatic reduction. It doesn't sound like much — .25% — but over the long run, it's a significant amount of money. - Re-invest Your Dividends and Capital Gains
When your investments come up for dividends and capital gains, set them up to re-invest. Unless you're at a time where you need access to that money, keep the savings and growth going — automatically.
Automating your finances isn't hard and the benefits are huge. You can save money on automatic bill payments, never worry about late fees and make sure that your savings is continually being fed.
Don't wait. Every day you don't automate your finances is a day you're spending more time managing your money than living your life.
I've been so bored with managing my daily spendings, paying bills and the like, which I as a rule do with a pen and paper, that online banking comes to my mind more frequently. It all is a question of security for me. As it is I'm still sort of suspicious about online transactions. Anyway thanks for the post, it has given me a thought.
Opra, online banking is totally safe — assuming you are working with a legitimate organization.
Always make sure that the sites you are dealing with have a Verisign security certificate — if they don't, don't send any personal information through them.
Your bank should also have a page on their Web site explaining their security protocols.
My student loan account w/ Sallie Mae has a gret provision that if you make 24 consecutive payments on time, you'll get a 2.0% reduction in rate in addition to the 0.25% reduction for automatic payments. My current interest rate on my MBA loans is 0.69%. (yes, i consolidated at the absolutely lowest point possible :)).
Nice! So basically, you set it, forget it, and then get the 2% rate reduction.
You have to wonder why not everyone is doing this.
[...] 5 ways to automate your finances @ online savings blog, the more you automate, the less likely you are to forget things in an expensive manner [...]
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