Bill Consolidation Step #2: Folding the Bills into One Paying the bills directly from your bank account every month using an online bill payment tool can group your expenses together and time them with your paycheck and income. Many larger banks and credit unions offer this tool with online account access. Online bill payment allows you to schedule your bills, to whom they go to, and when. The bank then uses this pre-determined schedule to draw funds from your checking account and sends them to the recipient you determined. The bill consolidation effect of the tool is that it automates when the bills hit your checking account. You can lump them all on one date. As long as you get a paycheck on a timely basis, the money will always be in the account by the time the tool kicks in. All you have to do then is make sure you chalk off this lump charge from your checkbook as spent, so you don't double-count the funds as being available to spend on something else. A second, riskier method involves using a credit card. If you have a credit card with balance room on it (i.e. ability to spend), then you can use that one card to pay all your monthly bills instead of sending out individual checks to each bill collector. However, this requires further discipline; you need to pay this credit card balance off every month. The system will not work if you add on the spending, and then take the funds for the bills and spend them on something else. This just doubles your debt and gets you further in the hole. Once the bills are all charged, wait five days for the charges to clear your account and then pay the card off. Most credit cards offer account access over the Internet, so you can see daily the changes on your credit card account and which bills have posted. This gives you real time access to your credit card account and the ability to pay it. Link the account to your bank account via the Internet access, and with the push of a button you can pay off all your bills for the month with one payment. The beauty of this method is that you can time the payment of the bills with your incoming paycheck. Instead of having to chase individual bill deadlines, you have one payment cycle to worry about, your credit card. Once the paycheck comes in, then you send your jumbo payment immediately and the bills are cleared. Now you don't need to worry about any of the bills until the next month. Next - Step Three Copyright 2011 BillConsolidationGuide.com Previous-Step One .com A Common Sense Approach to Bill Consolidation Home Financial Discipline Folding them Together Snowball Effect Commercial Services Privacy Policy