I just got off the phone with my mom. (Thank you mom for inspiring this article!) Mid conversation she said:
“Oh shoot – I meant to mail our mortgage payment after work yesterday and I just noticed it’s still sitting on the desk. I guess I am going to the bank tomorrow.”
Prior to this, she had expressed feeling like there aren’t enough hours in a day to accomplish everything she wanted to accomplish – a regular feeling for her and for a lot of us right?! Despite not having enough hours in a day, she had the added task of going to the bank to do something that could have been completed online in less than a minute.
Mind you, this is a woman who is very computer literate. She actually pays a lot of her bills online already. It turns out that when she looked into online bill pay for this particular bill years ago, it was either not an option or it was a more complicated option. Hence, she started paying this bill by mail and has done so ever since.
I think that sometimes we start doing things a certain way and continue to because looking into alternatives seems too time consuming. In many cases though, taking a few extra minutes to research or set something up saves us a lot of time and effort in the long run.
Reducing paper waste with online bill pay
While many modern conveniences are totally wasteful and hurt the environment, for example heavily packaged pre-cut fruit, I feel SO grateful for the conveniences that help save time and reduced waste. Opting out of junk mail and paper billing is one of those. By signing up for online billing, and by doing so for all eligible bills, you can save yourself a lot of time and waste by paying everything at once with a few clicks. If you have already set up online bill pay for your own eligible bills, you could help your loved ones by showing them how to set it up as well.
Is there anything in your life that you’ve been putting off looking into that could save you time, money, or help the environment? Do all companies you make payments to have an online bill pay option? We would love to hear your experiences!
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XOXO,
Eco Girl