Does being lazy help you save money? It does for me. I am pretty lazy when it comes to doing things so I try to automate everything. I automate most of our bills and most of our savings. This way we can pay all bills on time and without worry.
Should you automate yourself? I have our mortgage and HOA paid on the 2nd of every month, our car insurance and home insurance paid on the 15th by auto-debit. I directly transfer $450/month in property taxes on the 2nd as well. Our cell phone and cable is directly charged to our CC, and our credit cards are on auto pay as well. That’s about it. We never get caught with a late fee and we always know how much is being debited.
I guess it works for us because we have some flexibility in our budget. There’s some built in slack. But otherwise I could see how it’s tough. One way to compensate for this is working a month ahead.
Setting up a budget to work a month or even two weeks in advance can take awhile. It can take many months to break the paycheck to paycheck living. Also if you paying off debt, the urge could be there pay off debt instead of hoarding the one month cash buffer.
One tool which I’ve never used, but appears useful is YouNeedABudget. It uses an excel spreadsheet to help you predict expenses in the future and build a cash cushion months in advance.
Like I said, I fell into working at least 1 month ahead because of laziness. I preferred not to worry about paying bills on time, so I automated everything. Everything is paid at the first of the month because we have so much cash surplus we don’t have to wait until the due date.
Moral of the story? Slacking off and looking for an easier way to live can help you save on late fees or forgetting to pay a bill through automated bill pay.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Kristy // Oct 26, 2008 at 11:05 am
I am not automated and I have to say that I have never been late on a payment. Ask me again next year when I have a toddler AND a newborn!
2 SP // Oct 26, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I don’t like being that automated, for some reason.
I get all my bills online (except rent), pay them all online when I receive them. The only automated thing is my Roth IRA contributions and student loan (because I get a discount)
Waiting until the due date would cause stress I think, but I like to make sure nothing looks out of whack.
3 fengshui // Oct 26, 2008 at 10:47 pm
This would work for my hubby and I as long as we had a joint checking, and we don’t. So, I have to nag him to write me checks so I can pay bills. I can’t get him to budge. Not really sure what else to do….
4 Pearl // Oct 27, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Like you, I have my mortgage, homeowner’s & car insurance, property taxes, health insurance, all coming automatically out of my no-fee checking account. Cable, phone, some utilities and any other recurring items that allow it are paid automatically on my rewards credit card, which I also use for everything else (groceries, gas, etc.) and then the card is paid automatically from my account. I usually get a cash-back reward of well over $100 a year.
Because I’m self-employed and have very uneven cash flows (usually only pay myself two to four times a year), I have my account set up with overdraft protection from its associated savings account, and the savings set up for overdraft protection from a secured line of credit. The line of credit is then set up to have the minimum monthly payment (interest only; current interest rate 4.75% per annum) paid out of the account. You could say it’s all on autopilot.
To guard against identity theft or errors, both bank and credit accounts are set up for unusual transaction and balance alerts, and I check the accounts online at least once a week when I post everything to Quicken.
This way, besides no late fees or interest charges on the credit card or other bills, there’s also no risk of overdraft fees.
I know some people see credit as somehow not real money and for them, this system could be risky, but for me it works. I know pretty exactly where I stand, and the line of credit has to be at zero balance before I will allow myself to spend on anything discretionary. When I do pay myself, after paying off the line of credit and maxing out my IRA contribution, enough goes into the savings to cover my anticipated expenses for the next three months, while anything over that goes into my long-term investment account.
Obviously, I’m not living on the edge; my annual income is usually pretty good, just very uneven. Anyone on a limited income would have to manage their funds more closely. But there’s a lot of peace of mind knowing that if I get super busy at work, go on a trip, or just get lazy and let the bookkeeping slide, I’m not going to get hit with high-interest finance charges, huge overdraft fees and possible interruption of services. The very worst that can happen is a month or two of low interest charges on my line of credit.
5 LivingAlmostLarge // Oct 29, 2008 at 11:05 am
That’s a good point about variable income. I hadn’t considered it.
I’ve found it just relaxing to not worry about certain bills like the mortgage. I tell my bank monthly my mortgage is paid on the 1st, HOA 1st, etc.
7 Jesse W. // Nov 2, 2008 at 1:56 am
sometimes the most simple means is also the most productive!
Jesse W.
http://www.subprimeblogger.com
8 Slinky // Nov 3, 2008 at 7:54 pm
As programmers like to say, “I’m not lazy, I’m efficient.”
All my recurring fixed income expenses are automatically paid from my checking. Variable expenses I schedule myself, because I don’t have a CC, and I won’t give a third party access to my bank account. I check each month to make sure everything went as scheduled though. That’s just me being paranoid.
9 LivingAlmostLarge // Nov 6, 2008 at 7:57 pm
I like that, not lazy, but efficient.
10 Slinky // Nov 7, 2008 at 11:24 am
It’s a great saying. Do more work now, so you have to do less work later is the idea behind it. Programmers are great at that, automate something by writing a script or program, which is more work, but after that you can be lazy and never do it again.
Rich Life Carnival #17 | Rich Life Carnival - Nov 1, 2008
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