Not unpaid, but float a little past a due date? Sure, once in a while. Depends on what's going on. Sudden emergency room visit and the emergency cushion is still recuperating from the last one? Time to pay the electric bill 3 days late. Stuff like that.
Oh god instant, automatic, recurring debits are a nightmare for me. I balance my account registers daily. There is almost never any notice of the debit from the bank for the few things that I do have automatically deducted except for a line item buried in my online statement.
No thank you, I have as few of those as humanly possible.
I have as many of those as possible. You can't fail to pay a bill if it's automatic. The savings on stamps and checks is not very significant, although it is non-zero. The savings on time is tremendous. I only think about bills once a month when I login to my bank's web site, verify there was no fraud, and double-check the accounting.
This is where I'd like to be in the future, probably, but right now my expense/income ratio is too high and I like to manage that gap very aggressively.
That's a good idea in your situation - My bank also offers preset transfers, too. So, for example, if I have to pay my rent every month within a set window(say, a week) and I don't have the money on Monday because my payday is Thursday, then I can hold off till Thursday, and then when I have the cash it's a one-button affair to send the transfer through.
A late fee of 1% on a $150 utility bill is a lesser pain than emptying my account for 3 days and hoping nothing happens in order to pay the bill on time.
The UK's faster payments initiative means any bank transfer is free and takes less than an hour. If they could tighten it up and somehow overcome the problem of how to guarantee the money like credit cards can as well as implementing a standard request and approval system, we could be all set.
I generally use cash for things in the few pounds range but I'll use my card if I need but some places don't have the hardware to take cards, though most do.
I read an article a while back about how bank automation and cheque processing has largely eliminated float, which as a byproduct eliminated what was previously a constant small bubble of fabricated purchasing power.
I read an article a while back about how bank automation and cheque processing has largely eliminated float, which as a byproduct eliminated what was previously a constant small bubble of fabricated purchasing power.
In other words bankers didn't like the public pulling the same shit they do.
I read an article a while back about how bank automation and cheque processing has largely eliminated float, which as a byproduct eliminated what was previously a constant small bubble of fabricated purchasing power.
I read an article a while back about how bank automation and cheque processing has largely eliminated float, which as a byproduct eliminated what was previously a constant small bubble of fabricated purchasing power.
Fascinating!
I'll try to find the article again. It was something I'd never really considered before, though I had definitely taken advantage of it at RIT.
What do you guys do when you need to transfer a large sum of money to another person? Back in my old apartment, all of the utilities and rent were in my roommate's name and I'd write him a check for half at the end of the month. I'm actually just curious, as I never considered looking into any alternatives (and am especially ignorant of options in other countries).
What do you guys do when you need to transfer a large sum of money to another person? Back in my old apartment, all of the utilities and rent were in my roommate's name and I'd write him a check for half at the end of the month. I'm actually just curious, as I never considered looking into any alternatives (and am especially ignorant of options in other countries).
I don't do shady things such as living in a place where my name is not on the lease.
If I do have to transfer a large amount of money, it really depends how large. I can do a direct transfer. I can use cash. I can use evil PayPal. For a very large sum I can get a cashier's check. Most of the time I am transferring a large amount, it is to someone who accepts credit cards.
What do you guys do when you need to transfer a large sum of money to another person? Back in my old apartment, all of the utilities and rent were in my roommate's name and I'd write him a check for half at the end of the month. I'm actually just curious, as I never considered looking into any alternatives (and am especially ignorant of options in other countries).
Me? I'll usually either go with cash, or a bank transfer. If it's a business concern, then OCCASIONALLY I'll pay by cheque, but rarely.
For the record, I was on the lease. My roommate had just lived at the apartment a year before me, already had a routine with his former roommate, and I just followed suit. I suppose direct transfer would have been a viable alternative. And all calculated, the total was usually slightly more than $1,000 a month. Definitely not something I'd want to transfer with cash.
I still send in my mortgage as a check and take advantage of the float that Rym is talking about. The Mortgage is due on the 1st but there is no late fee till the 17th and your credit is not hit till over 30 days (or 60 days I think) so I tend to time the check to a pay check sometimes between the first and 17th, I don't particularly need to do that but I still do it anyway,
I guess my question is, why all the butthurt and pseudo-agony over buying 12 stamps and mailing 12 checks? Is it REALLY that bad? Sure, electronic payment is more convenient, but so what? Does everything always have to be optimized?
The butthurt: a €20 fee to process a $30 cheque leaves me with €4.32. I'll take Paypal fees or a bank transfer fee over that any day.
I think I've talked about this on a GeekChat, but not on the forums. I don't think that I've ever seen a check in real life. They are just another thing like fire hydrants that I know just from reading Donald Duck comics.
If it were not for some corporate work and my parent's business back in the day, I'd probably have never seen a cheque in my life either.
If I am not mistaken he does not live in America. Though that does make me curious as to what your fire departments process is to get water to put out fires.
Usually, the hydrant outlet is underground, behind a steel access hatch - similar, but more compact, and more protected from damage. Cheaper, too. Occasionally, you might see one on the side of a building, if you're in the city.
More protected from damage but less conspicuous, both to fire personnel and the public who might obstruct it unwittingly.
I'm not sure that's an improvement but the statistics would bear that out, I guess?
Anyway I like fire hydrants. They're traditional.
As someone who spent some time as a volunteer firefighter I'm actually really intrigued by the underground hydrant concept.
Firefighters don't really need them to be conspicuous. We know where the hydrants are located w/ respect to the address well before we pull up to it. This is more than likely a modern convenience now that the trucks all have computers.
Con: Underground hydrants can be easily obstructed by public Pro: they are less easily tampered with by the public (happens all the time)
I guess my question is, why all the butthurt and pseudo-agony over buying 12 stamps and mailing 12 checks? Is it REALLY that bad? Sure, electronic payment is more convenient, but so what? Does everything always have to be optimized?
The butthurt: a €20 fee to process a $30 cheque leaves me with €4.32. I'll take Paypal fees or a bank transfer fee over that any day.
Your situation is heavily qualified and fairly unique.
On the topic of this whole "paying by checks" thing, this lines up with my frustrations about doctor's offices operating so far behind in the technology curve. Most of my family's doctors wind up doing billing after the fact and will send statements in the mail.
I can either pay by check or write my credit card numbers down on a piece of paper and mail them in. I wind up writing checks, and pray for the day that I will be allowed to use instant transfers, as is done for all the other services in my life.
What sort of bill are we talking about? Copays, or actual medical charges?
Mostly copays, but occasionally some medical charges. Since the daughter is new and has some minor medical issues, she's seeing all sorts of doctors as a new patient. They tend to have policies where they don't accept my copays in person the first time I come b/c they want to see what the insurance works out to be (even though I know the answer), so I get a bill after the fact.
Then sometimes with my established doctors I'll know my benefits better than they do, and they'll try to make me overpay at the office, so I make them run it through insurance and bill me later.
Yeah, that's pretty lame when doctor's make you pay more up front. In more normal cases whether a patient does or doesn't have insurance, they wait for it all to be coded to make sure the encounter has been seen by certified coders and coded with the highest level of reimbursement.
Also places that don't take your copay up front at all? That's so weird.
Comments
Clearly, it's not optimal, but I'm working on it.
I generally use cash for things in the few pounds range but I'll use my card if I need but some places don't have the hardware to take cards, though most do.
If I do have to transfer a large amount of money, it really depends how large. I can do a direct transfer. I can use cash. I can use evil PayPal. For a very large sum I can get a cashier's check. Most of the time I am transferring a large amount, it is to someone who accepts credit cards.
Firefighters don't really need them to be conspicuous. We know where the hydrants are located w/ respect to the address well before we pull up to it. This is more than likely a modern convenience now that the trucks all have computers.
Con: Underground hydrants can be easily obstructed by public
Pro: they are less easily tampered with by the public (happens all the time)
I can either pay by check or write my credit card numbers down on a piece of paper and mail them in. I wind up writing checks, and pray for the day that I will be allowed to use instant transfers, as is done for all the other services in my life.
Then sometimes with my established doctors I'll know my benefits better than they do, and they'll try to make me overpay at the office, so I make them run it through insurance and bill me later.
Also places that don't take your copay up front at all? That's so weird.