photo credit: kozumel
Business Speakers Tip
Have you ever missed a bill payment? Being late in bill payments for your utilities such as hydro, gas, water and telephone results in unnecessary late fees added onto your next bill. This is especialy true for credit card payments which typically result in high double digit interest fees which you most certainly want to avoid.
Being late in payments also can affect your personal credit rating which in turn will come back to haunt you in the future if you are applying for a mortgage or any other type of financing since creditors will check your credit ratings. The credit bureaus will get information on any late payments you’ve had which will blemish your rating.
You definitely want to avoid having a bad credit rating and any misunderstandings should be cleared up with the credit bureau immediately. Here is a business speakers tip for you so that you will never miss a bill payment again which will not only keep you from late fees, but keep your credit ratings clean.
Record Payment Due Dates
If at all possible, I choose automatic withdrawals for regular payments from my bank account. This is what I do for condominium fees for example. Instead of writing cheques, my monthly fees are simply withdrawn from my bank account by the property management company.
For other things like my cable TV and home security, they automatically charge my credit card each month again preventing any late payments. In effect, charging to my credit cards gives me an extra 30 days to pay and rewards me with airline points as well.
For other regular bills like telephone and hydro, I get them in the mail. As soon as I receive a bill in the mail, I look for the payment due date. If the due date is March 30, I record a reminder to myself right on my electronic calendar (iCal in my case) to pay the bill about three business days before it. So in this example, I would use a reminder on my iCal for March 27.
I use the three business days as a cushion to give the bank some time to process and send the payment to whichever company I’m owed. I do all of my bill payments online so three days would be sufficient. For those of you mailing your payments in, I would suggest a longer cushion like one or even two weeks ahead of the payment due date.
Business Speakers Always Refer To Calendars
All business speakers and all efficient people for that matter always refer to there calendars whether paper or electronic. Having reminders for making specific payments that are not automatic through my bank account is a discipline you would want to follow in order to pay within due dates.
When the day of a payment comes up, I’m already seeing the reminder to pay a bill along with other tasks I have to do that day. The secret to making this business speakers tip a success is two-fold.
First, have the develop the discipline to always write up a reminder as soon as you open up a bill in the mail. Don’t just file it away without doing this since you might forget about the bill.
Second, always refer to your calendar so that you won’t miss the reminder for the bill payment.
Keeping these in mind will ensure that you never miss any bill payments. The only complication that can arise is during mail strikes where your bill might not arrive on time. So in the event of a mail strike, I make sure that I call the companies to check when bill payments are. They usually don’t change so it’s a safe bet to pay your balances at around the same time each month.
On another note, if you need a motivational or diversity business speaker for a future meeting, check my motivational business speaker page for details on my available talks and seminars.
Have you ever missed a bill payment? How do you make sure you never miss payments? Feel free to enter your comments below.
