Originally posted by: Jzero
My electric company seems to have teamed up with mycheckfree.com to do this. I'm not sure how it works for other utilities as I use my bank's online bill service for everything.
Originally posted by: dullard
Virtually all monthly bills give you the option to automatically debit your account 100% free of charge.
I'm OK with this for loan repayments that don't change, but for utility companies that habitually make errors that seem to always be in their favor, I don't want them to get a penny without me going over the statement to make sure they haven't made any "mistakes." If you've already paid, you don't have much bargaining power.
Or even better, if you pay your CC bills in full and on time: have the bills autmatically charge on to your CC and get the 2% cash back. Of course, not all people pay the CC on time, so this advice isn't a good idea for everyone. You can even have that CC automatically debit your bank.
I do this for the vast majority of my bills. The rewards bucks mount up pretty quickly.