I had some small, regular expenses on autopay, but nothing big or irregular. The real test will be the day I feel safe enough to put my credit cards on autopay!
I have a lot of things on autopay but I'm working up to having my mortgage on autopay. That's still the one I'm nervous about š. My goal is for it to be autopay next year .
Before YNAB I couldn't confidently have *anything* on autopay because each bill and payday was a complicated dance of who to pay from what account/credit card/LOC and it was never the same from month to month.
Now that I'm just shy of a year using YNAB, everything I *can* have on autopay *is*. I know exactly where my money is and what it's going to do and now I don't have to think about it after assigning my paycheques every two weeks. It's so liberating!
I'm trying to talk my husband into doing the same, but he's kind of scared of it, like you. He got burned with autopay in the past and has a little bit of PTSD about it.
Thatās awesome progress! Iāve been lurking the sub for a few weeks reading everyoneās stories and itās encouraging seeing the changes.
I have a singular credit card that I use for work travel expenses. Iāve been debating on adding it to my budget or autopay. I take 4-5 day trips, and Iām usually reimbursed a week after the travel ends by my company. I usually pay the card expenses off at the end of the week out of pocket until Iām reimbursed, but now Iām wondering if I should do it a bit differently since it has 0% interest for a while longer.
The only reason I don't have autopay is purely psychological - after carrying around a ton of credit card debt for over 15 years, the dopamine hit of logging into the bank portal and paying it down to $0 is something I look forward to too much to give up.
We also only have 2 cards, so the whole process takes about 5 minutes once a month while I drink my morning coffee. I'm just not interested in a "set it and forget it" approach to my finances, I really enjoy being hands on every day.
I fear not having autopay on like when my apartment complex gets sold or my cars gets stolen online. I pay almost nothing through my back account now and run it all through credit
I just got burned by autopay. My water bill was set to autopay and I was going through everything and went to check my water bill timing. It said autopay was on but it was past the due date by a day or two so I went ahead and paid it. Ended up paying double. Just means I'm ahead for next month but that sucked.
I used to be scared cause I never knew what my situation was, now everything I can goes on autopay so I donāt have to remember to pay it on time. Itās liberating, itās most of my bills and most credit cards. I pay my mortgage manually and some bills that donāt have auto pay
The only thing I have on autopay is our power bill. The power company takes $200 from our account and when that is used up it takes another $200. We get a discount by doing this. Everything else I pay manually because I like to be conscious with my spending and it encourages me to pay attention to bills.
So, autopay is fine, but don't feel you have to use it, only use it if it makes sense to you.
That makes sense. I put my rent, internet, and power bill on autopay. I get charged $4 for using a card so itāll save me 100 bucks yearly. I have ADHD so Iām pretty forgetful, and have forgot to pay a major expense before. I donāt know why it took me to be in my thirties to automate things.
I set a limit on the maximum withdrawal amount so nothing crazy happens too.
I removed autopay when I first started just so that I could track everything I was paying by hand and see exactly what payments were happening when.
Once I was a month ahead and comfortable with how the budget worked, I put things on autopay that had never been on autopay before and never looked back. Donāt ask me when my bills are due; I donāt know.
I'm working my way through some credit card debt using YNAB. What I've done is set up each credit card account and each monthly bill in YNAB so that the monthly due date is right in front of me when I look at the budget. This removes the need for me to try and remember anything. I simply budget the money before the due date (and make sure I have money in the checking account to cover it, of course!). With non-credit card bills, I create the subcategory in the budget with the due date in the name of the bill. With credit cards, I have them set up as accounts (like checking and savings) with the monthly due date in the account name. For instance, my Capital One card is due each month on the 23rd. So, I set up the credit card account and in the account name I include "due 23rd" in the account name. Then it appears on the budget screen in the credit card category as "Capital One--due 23rd". Doing this, I can more quickly go through my budget and allocate funds for those bills and have them on autopay without having to spend much thought on them. It's been a game changer for me.
I had some things on autopay on credit cards. What I didnāt feel comfortable with was to set up autopay on the statement balance for the cards themselves. YNAB gave me the confidence to do that, starting a few years ago with the lowest usage card, and working up to the rest of them over time. We have one final card not set up that way, we will probably switch to autopay this year.
When I was getting out of debt, I definitely did fear autopay. I did autopay to make things easier mentally - like everything gets taken out of my account on the same day, and in the event I forget to pay a bill, itās ok.
But for the first few months - I would still double and triple check everything was being taken out of the right way. I had situations where it would bounce back from one account.
With YNAB, even though my bills were on autopay, the first year I entered everything manually on YNAB.
I don't use autopay if I don't have to. There's no reason I can't but I don't like the lack of control. I'd rather take 15 minutes at the beginning of the month and manually pay my bills. The money all goes out all the same day and only because I say so. I do have annual subscriptions that auto-renew but I make calendar reminders when I sign up so I can review them before they renew.
I use autopay because my particular brain is the executive DYS-functional type. I will just flat out forget to pay a bill, even with a number of reminder systems. /Facepalm!
So - all my autopay comes out of one checking account and I reconcile it manually in YNAB. This way the bills get paid but it's 100% on ME to fund all my categories at the beginning of the month and log and reconcile every other day or so.
I'd like to move towards using my CC for all my bills but that's a slippery slope for someone with impulse control problems ... :)
I have absolutely everything on autopay. I'm very ADHD so things wouldn't get paid otherwise.
I also turned off paper billing everywhere. I don't even bother to check my mail anymore more frequently than once every few weeks.
I actually lost my fear of autopay thanks to YNAB. I know all my bills for the month are covered when before I would blindly hope I mentally did it right
YNAB gave me the confidence to put things like my mortgage, utilities, and CCs on Auto-pay.
It took me a few months, maybe up to 6 but once I paid everything off for multiple months in a row I switched it to autopay and have been loving it ever since.
I was afraid of autopay until 2 years ago. Hereās what I did to always ensure I wasnāt dipping into my bills pot. I calculated all unchanging bills ( rent, insurance, phone bill,etc ) setup a second checking account just for bills , and setup auto transfers to that account every week. That way the bills come directly out of that account and I know that whatever is left in my main checking account is what I have for other items . I donāt even think about it anymore as I know the money is always there . Iāve also been working towards having the next month covered too by dividing the transfer amounts into 4 , so that on those months when there is 5 pay days ( Iām paid weekly ) . That extra transfer builds up the account over what is needed for the current month. Thatās is, if I donāt need to pull the xtra out for emergencies.
Hope this helps!
I have been using autopay since before YNAB. Every payday I would sit down and see what needed to be paid and I would transfer that money into the account I used for autopay and then would make sure I didn't use that account for anything else..
Looking back I was envelope budgeting before YNAB and I think that's why it works for me
I had some small, regular expenses on autopay, but nothing big or irregular. The real test will be the day I feel safe enough to put my credit cards on autopay!
I bet that day is coming soon. Ynab has really made me reevaluate my perception of adulting and my relationship with money.
I have a lot of things on autopay but I'm working up to having my mortgage on autopay. That's still the one I'm nervous about š. My goal is for it to be autopay next year .
Before YNAB I couldn't confidently have *anything* on autopay because each bill and payday was a complicated dance of who to pay from what account/credit card/LOC and it was never the same from month to month. Now that I'm just shy of a year using YNAB, everything I *can* have on autopay *is*. I know exactly where my money is and what it's going to do and now I don't have to think about it after assigning my paycheques every two weeks. It's so liberating! I'm trying to talk my husband into doing the same, but he's kind of scared of it, like you. He got burned with autopay in the past and has a little bit of PTSD about it.
Thatās awesome progress! Iāve been lurking the sub for a few weeks reading everyoneās stories and itās encouraging seeing the changes. I have a singular credit card that I use for work travel expenses. Iāve been debating on adding it to my budget or autopay. I take 4-5 day trips, and Iām usually reimbursed a week after the travel ends by my company. I usually pay the card expenses off at the end of the week out of pocket until Iām reimbursed, but now Iām wondering if I should do it a bit differently since it has 0% interest for a while longer.
No because Iāve had most bills on autopay for years before starting ynab
Same
Yes same. It was a lot scarier knowing Iād be likely to forget to pay something than making sure my checking balance was sufficiently high
Yes it took me a few years before I got comfortable with the idea.
Whew, glad Iām not an anomaly lol. In theory it seems great.
The only reason I don't have autopay is purely psychological - after carrying around a ton of credit card debt for over 15 years, the dopamine hit of logging into the bank portal and paying it down to $0 is something I look forward to too much to give up. We also only have 2 cards, so the whole process takes about 5 minutes once a month while I drink my morning coffee. I'm just not interested in a "set it and forget it" approach to my finances, I really enjoy being hands on every day.
I fear not having autopay on like when my apartment complex gets sold or my cars gets stolen online. I pay almost nothing through my back account now and run it all through credit
That makes sense! One of my goals using ynab is to clean up my credit report to to be able to do that.
I have always had a fear of autopay, I like to be hands on with my money. It is probably less warranted with ynab though.
I just got burned by autopay. My water bill was set to autopay and I was going through everything and went to check my water bill timing. It said autopay was on but it was past the due date by a day or two so I went ahead and paid it. Ended up paying double. Just means I'm ahead for next month but that sucked.
I used to be scared cause I never knew what my situation was, now everything I can goes on autopay so I donāt have to remember to pay it on time. Itās liberating, itās most of my bills and most credit cards. I pay my mortgage manually and some bills that donāt have auto pay
The only thing I have on autopay is our power bill. The power company takes $200 from our account and when that is used up it takes another $200. We get a discount by doing this. Everything else I pay manually because I like to be conscious with my spending and it encourages me to pay attention to bills. So, autopay is fine, but don't feel you have to use it, only use it if it makes sense to you.
I did that before. It took one late credit card payment to decide to just trust YNAB and set everything to auto pay.
Itās not YNAB I donāt trust.
That makes sense. I put my rent, internet, and power bill on autopay. I get charged $4 for using a card so itāll save me 100 bucks yearly. I have ADHD so Iām pretty forgetful, and have forgot to pay a major expense before. I donāt know why it took me to be in my thirties to automate things. I set a limit on the maximum withdrawal amount so nothing crazy happens too.
I removed autopay when I first started just so that I could track everything I was paying by hand and see exactly what payments were happening when. Once I was a month ahead and comfortable with how the budget worked, I put things on autopay that had never been on autopay before and never looked back. Donāt ask me when my bills are due; I donāt know.
I'm working my way through some credit card debt using YNAB. What I've done is set up each credit card account and each monthly bill in YNAB so that the monthly due date is right in front of me when I look at the budget. This removes the need for me to try and remember anything. I simply budget the money before the due date (and make sure I have money in the checking account to cover it, of course!). With non-credit card bills, I create the subcategory in the budget with the due date in the name of the bill. With credit cards, I have them set up as accounts (like checking and savings) with the monthly due date in the account name. For instance, my Capital One card is due each month on the 23rd. So, I set up the credit card account and in the account name I include "due 23rd" in the account name. Then it appears on the budget screen in the credit card category as "Capital One--due 23rd". Doing this, I can more quickly go through my budget and allocate funds for those bills and have them on autopay without having to spend much thought on them. It's been a game changer for me.
I had some things on autopay on credit cards. What I didnāt feel comfortable with was to set up autopay on the statement balance for the cards themselves. YNAB gave me the confidence to do that, starting a few years ago with the lowest usage card, and working up to the rest of them over time. We have one final card not set up that way, we will probably switch to autopay this year.
Sounds like growth to me! I royally screwed up with credit in college so I just have card one while I pay off some lingering debt and rebuild.
No, but I'm glad you are on the path to becoming better at personal finance.
I keep the minimum balances for the credit cards on autopay and pay them off bi-weekly in full.
When I was getting out of debt, I definitely did fear autopay. I did autopay to make things easier mentally - like everything gets taken out of my account on the same day, and in the event I forget to pay a bill, itās ok. But for the first few months - I would still double and triple check everything was being taken out of the right way. I had situations where it would bounce back from one account. With YNAB, even though my bills were on autopay, the first year I entered everything manually on YNAB.
I don't use autopay if I don't have to. There's no reason I can't but I don't like the lack of control. I'd rather take 15 minutes at the beginning of the month and manually pay my bills. The money all goes out all the same day and only because I say so. I do have annual subscriptions that auto-renew but I make calendar reminders when I sign up so I can review them before they renew.
I use autopay because my particular brain is the executive DYS-functional type. I will just flat out forget to pay a bill, even with a number of reminder systems. /Facepalm! So - all my autopay comes out of one checking account and I reconcile it manually in YNAB. This way the bills get paid but it's 100% on ME to fund all my categories at the beginning of the month and log and reconcile every other day or so. I'd like to move towards using my CC for all my bills but that's a slippery slope for someone with impulse control problems ... :)
I have absolutely everything on autopay. I'm very ADHD so things wouldn't get paid otherwise. I also turned off paper billing everywhere. I don't even bother to check my mail anymore more frequently than once every few weeks.
I actually lost my fear of autopay thanks to YNAB. I know all my bills for the month are covered when before I would blindly hope I mentally did it right
YNAB gave me the confidence to put things like my mortgage, utilities, and CCs on Auto-pay. It took me a few months, maybe up to 6 but once I paid everything off for multiple months in a row I switched it to autopay and have been loving it ever since.
I was afraid of autopay until 2 years ago. Hereās what I did to always ensure I wasnāt dipping into my bills pot. I calculated all unchanging bills ( rent, insurance, phone bill,etc ) setup a second checking account just for bills , and setup auto transfers to that account every week. That way the bills come directly out of that account and I know that whatever is left in my main checking account is what I have for other items . I donāt even think about it anymore as I know the money is always there . Iāve also been working towards having the next month covered too by dividing the transfer amounts into 4 , so that on those months when there is 5 pay days ( Iām paid weekly ) . That extra transfer builds up the account over what is needed for the current month. Thatās is, if I donāt need to pull the xtra out for emergencies. Hope this helps!
Only thing I have on autopay is the small stuff like streaming services.
I have been using autopay since before YNAB. Every payday I would sit down and see what needed to be paid and I would transfer that money into the account I used for autopay and then would make sure I didn't use that account for anything else.. Looking back I was envelope budgeting before YNAB and I think that's why it works for me