Pay Bills?
 

Hi Everyone,

My husband and I will be taking our first "long" trip to Italy for 17 days. This question might sound silly to you: What do we do to all the bills (credit cards, electricity, gas, phone....) that will be sent to our home during our vacation? We certainly don't want any bills overdued when we return back home. Please help... thank you so much.

clok

If you pay all the bills you have at your home before you leave you should be fine until you get home. Pay all the bills that came while you were in Italy as soon as you get home, and you will be ok. Most bills give you more than 2 weeks to pay, so you really shouldn't have a problem. If you are still concerned, call all your utilites, explain to them your situation and either prepay or have them make a note on your account to explain why your check may be late- I don't think you should have a problem, though.

You should call your credit card companies anyway to alert them you'll be travelling (this prevents possible rejection of charges if they suspect the card's been stolen). If payments are due WHILE you're away, pay before you go. For a 3 week trip, it's unlikely you'll receive bills while you're away that will also be due while you're away.

If you do on line banking or bill pay, you can set your bills up to be paid in a certain amount, on a certain date, before you leave.

Another option is to have a trusted friend of family member take care of your mail and bills while you are away. You can leave them some blank checks (better make sure they are REALLY trustworthy...ha) to pay things.

You could also call your creditors and perhaps make arrangements for late pay when you return.

Personally, I use the on line banking method since it's easiest.

Faced the same thing ourselves last year. I prepaid as many as I could, even up to the night before we left. I was able to set up some of our bills as an "AutoPay" with our bank, especially utilities, like cable, electric, gas, etc. For the remainder I left a set of signed checks with Grandma and Grandpa (along with the rugrats) and told them to pay any bills that couldn't wait. A close friend could perform the same function.

Thank you everyone for your useful advise :)

clok

That is really a genuine concern.

My VISA card seems to arrive late and allows very little time to be assured that my payment is received on time. Utility bills are much more fogiving.

I have been gone for up to 3 weeks. What I do is to go online and check my outstanding balance the day that I am leaving. Then I pay that amount and even a little extra to make sure that I'm covered. What I am doing is paying the outstanding amount before I am even billed ..just to avoid being hit with a finance charge or late charges due to my travelling.

Several years ago I received a Master Card bill late and missed its due date. I actually had only four days to mail payment after receiving the bill to be sure it would arrive on time. I was away for a long weekend at the time and just missed it. I called Citibank and they actually lengthened the time I have to pay bills to allow for such a situation. Now payment must be received only 5 days before the new billing cycle -- it used to be 12 days or something like that.

But I have solved my problem with my trips of 2 to 5 months at a time by actually putting a friend on my bank accounts (yes, he is definitely trustworthy!). Note, I was advised not to put him on the actual checking account for various legal and liability reasons (like if he were sued, my checking account could be considered an asset of his). Instead the bank set it up as a limited power of attorney for him to sign checks on my account. He checks my mail once a week and throws away the obvious junk and pays any bills that come. Meanwhile I have set up more and more of my accounts to pay automatically. My favorites are the ones that let them go automatically on my Citibank Master Card so I also get FF miles for them. This summer Doug remarked that there was almost nothing for him to do.

Patrick,

Maybe next summer, you could stay home and pay the bills and treat Doug to a vacation.

PS. Doug, you owe me big time if Patrick goes along.

Actually a couple years ago while renting an apartment in Los Angeles, we flew Doug out and treated him to a week there. So he is "well paid" for his services. But oddly enough, Doug doesn't really enjoy traveling and prefers staying at home (which is cheaper for me!)

Excellent advice above. I'll add, on a somewhat related note, that you can arrange online to have your mail held at the post office:
https://dunsapp.usps.gov/HoldMail.jsp

Having a bad day, Mikeycora?

Call your credit card company...prepay before you leave..avoid those late charges...Also, alert them that you are leaving...or you may have a block put on your card if they think it has been stolen...Happened to me once in the States....Maggie

Can I just ask a question from a confused Brit?

Here in the UK, it's normal to pay all bills by Direct Debit ( a monthly payment arrangement between your bank and the company demanding money), which means that I could go away for, say, a couple of years, and as long as there was enough money in my current account, my bills would be paid auomatically on a set day of the month, every month. Don't you have a similar arrangement in the US?

Kate, yes we have it, and although it's growing in popularity, I think that most people still pay their bills the old fashioned way.

right, gotcha

Also, Kate, it is my understanding that in the UK system your bills are paid on the date they are due. Many of the auto pay set ups in the US will result in your bill being paid a bit early. I find this very annoying, because although it does not cost me more than pennies, it does result in huge financial gain to the company doing the billing.

We often go away for a month so I must deal with bills that will be due when I am gone. There is lots of good advice in the above posts, but I think the real key is to look at them individually. I will now embarrass myself by admiting that I have created a spreadsheet so I don't have to remember due dates and company policies from one trip to the next.

For example, my utility company, if I phone them, does not mind my bill being a few days late. I have set up my credit cards to be paid on line and I can do this from any internet connection, so I am able to pay on time but not early. (Hey, they charge me if I'm late, but they don't credit me if I'm early!)

Good question, clok!

We are gone quite a bit, often for months at a time, so I have almost all the utilities charged to a Credit Card, and the credit card is an automatic debit to the checking account. (This builds some nice cashback and/or ff miles from the cards.) Everything else is handled by online banking.

The CC's and most utilities I know of have 800 numbers you can call to inquire about balances. I have one MUD utility that is stuck in the 50's and does not have provisions for automatic CC charge or Bank Debit. I pay it in advance and have advised them that it may be over or under from time to time . . seems to keep them at bay.

If this is a one time deal, you can probably the utilities and explain the circumstances and get a dispensation.

Have fun . . enjoy! . . Rich

I do all my bill paying with on line banking using Bank of America.
Like Patrick, I also have my electric,telephone, etc bills paid automatically with these companies.
With easy access to the internet, I merely check out my credit cards on their respective websites and make payments via my online banking with Bank of America.
Our trips are generally for 6 weeks and have not had a problem.

Set up online bill paying if possible for all of your accounts if you're still concerned (though for three weeks, shouldn't be a problem). During our six-week stay in Italy, I just went to an Internet cafe and paid my bills online.

I make a list of all bills that I normally pay or that I know will come due in the time that I am on vacation. I pay off my credit cards and don't charge anything for a month before we go on an extended vacation. I also pay all utility bills right up until the night we leave. I have also put our insurance premiums on an annual payment basis, so that I know when those will come due and pay them before we leave. One year, when we were on an extended sabbatical leave, I had our house-sitter forward our mail once a week to us.

Patrick that is very nice to have a friend that would do that for you.

Yes, Katherine, I am truly blessed.

We travel for monthsat a time and use online banking . Most hotels we stay in have computer service so it's a cinch. Also 99% of all of the companies we use are online, so we check the bills and pay online. Computers make life so simple now, you can pay bills in Connecticut while lounging on the Riviera

For what it's worth, and at the risk of repeating what others have said:

1. I do all my bill-paying automatically through my bank. The bill comes in, it gets deducted from my checking account, I reconcile at the end of the month when I receive the statement - voilà! Doesn't matter whether I'm at home in the USA or in Timbuktu, the bills get paid as long as I put money in the checking account.

2. Whenever I plan a trip abroad, I call my credit card companies and let them know. This is to avoid the unpleasantness that can ensue when you go to check out of, say, an expensive hotel after a 5-day stay and have the concierge tell you "Sorry, but your charges have been denied," as happened to me once, of course on the occasion of checking out of one of the most expensive hotels I'd ever stayed at. A quick call to the 800 number of AMEX solved the problem, but still, I remember the embarrassment vividly - NYCFoodSnob would have cringed.

Most bills are due 30 days from receipt, so on a 17-day trip you shouldn't have to worry if you pay all accounts payable right before you leave, but perhaps setting up your accounts at your bank to pay automatically in the future will save you the hassle of worrying about getting bills paid on time whether you are in residence in the USA or on travel.

"most bills are due 30 days from receipt."

Maybe in your world, St. Cirq, but in my world most are done on a monthly billing cycle and if the cycle closes on the 30th of the month, I usually wouldn't get the bill until maybe the 6th. Then they have to receive payment several days before the next billing cycle -- say the 25th. That leaves just 19 days between receipt of the bill and the time it must be mailed back with payment. Maybe less. That's why those automatic debits are so handy.

Way back in the dark ages of the eary 80's my parents had all the cards. On an extended trip though Asia after a three year stint in India they had their Amex refused in Singapore.

The policy was pay at billing or else.

Their version of 'or else' was to cancel their Amex card and never use that company again.

Years later. Amex 'invented' pay as you go.

Let the customer speak.

For anyone who plans to do their banking at internet cafes, let me share something I read in a computer magazine.

There are thieves out there who install "keystroke memory software" on public computers. Everything you type can be recorded, including your account number and password. To prevent this from happening, instead of typing in these numbers/letters, copy and paste from elsewhere on the webpage or another document you have open. For example, if I needed a "7" then a "3" I'd copy the 7 from the first post on this thread, then a 3 from the date of that post.

Sounds paranoid and time consuming, but better safe than sorry!

Nutella, the way my credit card payments are set up, I don't have to enter any sensitive info. They already have my checking account number, which is where the money is transferred from. I just fill in the amount I want to pay, and authorize it. (and only the last 4 digits of my account even show on the screen)

Marilyn, yours is a good system. Sounds like mine is the opposite - logging onto my bank's website with the acct number, then actively requesting electronic checks to be written to my various creditors. More room for error and forgetfulness on my part. I should think about this!

Bill paying is a service (either temporary or permanent) offered by many CPA's. I know, because I am one.

Nutella, just to clarify, the system I described is a payment method offered by the credit card company (Citibank in this case). It is not a system set up by my bank to pay any and all bills. But since the credit cards are the most unforgiving about late payment (i.e., they will charge me interest) they are the most important to me to pay on time.

There are some companies like bill pay or pay trust or click pay that lets you pay any bill to any company and have a data base of all the major compaines for a little fee some are free for trial membership you can pay EFT or they send a check. You can also send a check to a faimly menber for their birthday check out www.billpay .com or www.clickpay .com www.paytrust. you set the date when the payment is made and you save on postage.

On paytrust you can have them receive all you bills and they download the bills so you can view your actual credit car statments/ bills and check balances or charges and you can manange your checking account from any computer with internet access.www.paytrust .com less mail to go thu when you return great for long trips. Great for taxes has it on reports.it your personel CPA

Got ya, Marilyn. Mine is the opposite. Citibank is my checking account. I log into their website and tell them to send checks to the phone company, the credit card, etc. It's a good system, as long as I remember to click Pay! Yours is good too, as long as you remember to have enough in your account when it's automatically deducted!