tip of the week: eft

As many of you know, I've been tightening my budget lately. I've been cutting unnecessary costs as well as working to reducing ones I cannot cut.

As I was looking at my auto insurance last week, it occurred to me that my past payments are always $6 higher than they were when they were scheduled. I have meant to check on that for some time, but with my number crunching at its peak, I finally made a phone call. I called my agent and asked if they knew what the deal was with the $6 increase when I pay my bill. It turns out it was a bill fee.

Before I move on to my discovery, let me speak on the whole bill fee thing momentarily. I just read an article on this practice last week, so it was fresh on my mind when I called my agent. Companies can actually charge a fee for billing you. I think this is ridiculously absurd. You are already paying for whatever service you're using, they shouldn't be able to charge you to pay for that service. What was even more annoying to me was that I pay that bill online so it's not even like they have to send me a paper bill (though they do). I think this practice should be illegal.

Anyway, most companies waive that fee if you sign up for EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). The down-side with signing up for EFT is that you need to always make sure the money is in your account on the day the payment is scheduled. For me this is no issue, as I always schedule my payment for it's due date anyway.

After a few clicks of the mouse, I was all signed up for EFT and the $20/month savings that came with it (not sure why it came to $20/month...maybe they backdated it?).

Anyway, if you're looking to cut some unnecessary costs, I recommend you checking all the bills you pay and making sure there aren't bill fees attached. If so, you might consider signing up for EFT.