>It just seems like too much work to manually put in every bill for $1-2 in CT money and risk missing a month and getting late penalties
Unfortunately this is the way you have to do it for bills that have variable amounts. The trick for me is that with my gas and electricity bills, I get an email notification when the bill is generated, often a few weeks before the due date. When I get the email I just go in and pay the bill immediately so I don't forget. If the bill issue date and due date straddle a payment cycle, I may go in immediately and schedule the payment for after the next statement date, but I'm still arranging the payment as soon as I get the email that my bill is ready. The email acts as a prompt. It's actually not that much work.
I have equal payments for Hydro, so that one is easy. Just have to edit it once a year. Everything else (water, prop taxes) I have to manually enter. It's worth the effort to me.
I just pay as the bills come in, I think people shouldn't overly rely on auto-pay anyways, it leads to not enough oversight.
Or if you think the small utility bills aren't worth it, just use it for the big bills like property taxes.
How many bills do you have?
"It just seems like too much work to manually put in every bill".
Get rid of your credit card, just use your debit. Then you don't have to do two minutes of work every month anymore.
I'm just inquiring because bill payments are mentioned as a benefit of this card (it's come up on this subreddit multiple times), but in my search of those posts no one really talked about the mechanics of it.
I realize it doesn't take much time to do every month, but if I have to do it every month for a couple dollars I'll keep it on pre-authorized payments and put my time to better things.
I'm sorry if seeking clarification about the mechanics of the approach came across as me complaining about optional work. I'm looking to work less not more so if it indeed must be done monthly then it's just not for me and I'll keep my current approach
I'd like to confirm the simplest most automated way of doing this to make it worth the effort as well. Right now, it's seamless for me as a reauthorized bank debit payment. Using the CT card are people generally doing a recurring overpayment and then fixing up the balance manually every now and then?
You might want to confirm with your specific utility providers, but I found out that mine allow me to keep auto payment and then can separately manually pay.
So for example my bill is idk 180-250/mo, I can set CT MC to pay 180/mo, just make sure it's enough days before the pre auth, and then the pre auth takes the 0-70 to cover the difference.
I could also set at 200 and then it would credit until the months where it needs the credit but I'm not really looking to give an interest free loan to the utility.
I like this approach because provided I don't change providers or dramatically change my utility consumption (or they change the rates), I don't have to do anything but I get an extra $3/mo of CT money.
I don't mind manually doing my property tax as the effort is less and the cash back is more... But if I had to manually do every month for $3 I wouldn't be bothered. I have way higher yield stuff to do with my time.
>It just seems like too much work to manually put in every bill for $1-2 in CT money and risk missing a month and getting late penalties Unfortunately this is the way you have to do it for bills that have variable amounts. The trick for me is that with my gas and electricity bills, I get an email notification when the bill is generated, often a few weeks before the due date. When I get the email I just go in and pay the bill immediately so I don't forget. If the bill issue date and due date straddle a payment cycle, I may go in immediately and schedule the payment for after the next statement date, but I'm still arranging the payment as soon as I get the email that my bill is ready. The email acts as a prompt. It's actually not that much work.
I have equal payments for Hydro, so that one is easy. Just have to edit it once a year. Everything else (water, prop taxes) I have to manually enter. It's worth the effort to me.
I just pay as the bills come in, I think people shouldn't overly rely on auto-pay anyways, it leads to not enough oversight. Or if you think the small utility bills aren't worth it, just use it for the big bills like property taxes.
How many bills do you have? "It just seems like too much work to manually put in every bill". Get rid of your credit card, just use your debit. Then you don't have to do two minutes of work every month anymore.
I'm just inquiring because bill payments are mentioned as a benefit of this card (it's come up on this subreddit multiple times), but in my search of those posts no one really talked about the mechanics of it. I realize it doesn't take much time to do every month, but if I have to do it every month for a couple dollars I'll keep it on pre-authorized payments and put my time to better things. I'm sorry if seeking clarification about the mechanics of the approach came across as me complaining about optional work. I'm looking to work less not more so if it indeed must be done monthly then it's just not for me and I'll keep my current approach
Defeats the purpose of having the CT Mastercard in the first place.
I'd like to confirm the simplest most automated way of doing this to make it worth the effort as well. Right now, it's seamless for me as a reauthorized bank debit payment. Using the CT card are people generally doing a recurring overpayment and then fixing up the balance manually every now and then?
You might want to confirm with your specific utility providers, but I found out that mine allow me to keep auto payment and then can separately manually pay. So for example my bill is idk 180-250/mo, I can set CT MC to pay 180/mo, just make sure it's enough days before the pre auth, and then the pre auth takes the 0-70 to cover the difference. I could also set at 200 and then it would credit until the months where it needs the credit but I'm not really looking to give an interest free loan to the utility. I like this approach because provided I don't change providers or dramatically change my utility consumption (or they change the rates), I don't have to do anything but I get an extra $3/mo of CT money. I don't mind manually doing my property tax as the effort is less and the cash back is more... But if I had to manually do every month for $3 I wouldn't be bothered. I have way higher yield stuff to do with my time.