PAYING BILLS

Well, the smoke smell finally left the house. 

It occurred to me in looking at last week’s post that it makes no sense to someone reading it that I have to be home to pay a bill.  It was not the writing of the check (yes, I still pay my bills by check) or the need to mail out the bill and payment (yes, I still pay my bills by mail), but the fact that money needed to pay the bill would not be credited to our bank account until today, the 11th.  It would go into our savings account and I had to be here to transfer the money needed to pay the bill into our checking account.  I like to do this so I know that the money is actually in the checking account and did not for some reason go awry.  If something did happen the savings account would be short funds and I would not be able to transfer the money - but at least I would know of the problem and would be able to cover the checks I needed to send out in another way, while I tracked down where the money owed to us was. 

We did drive down to Pennsylvania last Saturday and had a very nice day.  The weather was sunny and warm - but not the hot weather that had been there during last week and there was no rain.  We did lose an hour locally in transit as there was roving road repairs being done - and the GPS did not know that how long the delay was or did not care.

Since we had to stay home to transfer money to pay a bill, I thought I would talk about paying bills today.  I deal with bills for a living, you probably only deal with yours or maybe yours and your business’s bills.  The idea for personal or business bills are basically the same - make sure the amount you were billed is right and pay them - on time.

I admit to probably being older than most of you and grew up with paper bills and paper checks.  Therefore I am more comfortable using them than paying bills online.  It is not that I am new to computers or a “late adaptor”.  I learned to program computers when they were huge mechanical devices.  The one I learned to program, in Fortran II, was the size of a good sized office desk (which were also larger back then than they are now) and there was a second device the same size to compile the program.  Today the compiler is software, not hardware.  Heck, even the keyboard setup to punch the software and/or data into cards was larger than even my desktop computer is today. My problem is that having learned to work with computers so long ago I have learned the concept that no computer is secure (and we did not have the computers connected to the Internet back then).  When I am not using a computer it is turned off and unplugged - the exception being that if a laptop needs charging it may be off and charging. 

So, I am more comfortable paying my bills by check.  I have written abit about this before - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/04/last-October-10-26-16-i-posted-on.html

We don’t like to be in debt.  We pay our credit card in full every month. 

Well, except one month.  When husband was working full time he would receive any unused sick pay when the new company year started in September.  (They operated on a school year as they were partly a school.)  We would take our vacation in August as I could take time off then and the place he worked would close for 2 weeks in August.  So the unused sick pay was rather convenient to cover the charge card bills from vacation.  One year the sick pay was delayed a month.  Our choice was to take money out of savings and pay the bill in full, or pay part and pay the balance the following month when the money came in.  It was one of those odd periods in which the interest rates on debt and the interest rates on savings were about the same.  We decided to pay half the bill and then pay the other half, plus any new charges in full, the following month and that is what we did.

We have taken out some loans over the decades. We only do so for large items - house, car, RV.  Everyone of them has had every payment made on time - with some of them we have paid them off in less time than originally scheduled by making extra principal payments.  (More on this next week.)

Medical insurance and bills - have also been paid in full, although we have been lucky enough to have our medical insurance covered by his employer while husband was working.  In addition the largest medical bills we had were when husband had cataract surgeries.  We had the sort of insurance that covers more of the bills for “providers” in their plan and less, although still most, of the bills for providers not in their plan.  Our doctor was the latter. We paid our share of about $4000 on the two surgeries in full to the doctor. 

Oh, a thought here - make sure you know what is covered on your medical insurance - if you can use a provider who is covered it will save you money - expenses might not even be covered if your doctor, pharmacy, etc. is not on their list and you will be stuck for the full cost. In addition make sure that you check your bills for accuracy and if there is a question or problem don’t just accept it.  When husband had his first surgery (each eye was done separately) the insurance company rejected the claim.  The doctor’s office assure me that it was not my problem, they would have to “eat” the costs.  I did not let it go.  I telephoned the insurance company and asked what had happened - I had followed all of the rules for an out of the plan doctor, etc.  I was told some stupidity that the claim was not submitted in time.  Turned out that the doctor’s office had a O for a 0 or a 0 for an O and it was rejected.  When it was fixed and they went to resubmit it, they were told that it was too late to do so and there was no record of the original, rejected submission.  I called the insurance company again and started, politely complaining.  Not much was happening.  I told them that my husband decides which policies everyone at work will have (this was true).  I suddenly had a phone call from the insurance company that there had been an error - the surgery had been preapproved (which it had been) and therefore was covered.  (We were extremely popular at the doctor’s office after that.)  So know what has to be done and do it to make sure that your claims are covered - follow up with the doctor’s staff to make sure they do what they need to do and make sure you do what you need to do.  If you need to have a referral, have it - and make a photocopy for yourself in case it “gets lost”. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Basically we try to live within our income and waste as little as possible of our money paying interest charges and not paying other fees.  We live comfortably but not over the top.  We don’t eat at expensive restaurants.  We find discounted movie theaters or discounted tickets to same.  We drive Chevys not Cadillacs, BMWs or Mercedes Benz.  (You do know that Chevy and Cadillacs have “twin cars” don’t you - as do Ford and Lincoln.)  We sleep better at night not worrying about huge bills or mounting interest charges. 

Other posts will follow on related financial matters including some of the things we have done to “find” money for bills and for savings.