Getting the bills done is an intermittent activity around the Consortium, largely because I use PayTrust to manage about 95% of our billpaying, which means the urgency of getting to the remaining 5% drops significantly (which usually means I get in trouble when something goes wrong with the process — a new account, something that has to be handled manually, etc.).
But I usually feel a great deal of triumph and self-righteous virtue when I actually do get done with whats been clogging the bill box.
The karmic reward I got from the effort (which took most of the afternoon) was discovering, in examining the checking account, that I had received a very nice little bonus from the company, which was both unexpected and which I never received any notification of from anyway.
Which is both a nice surprise, and a good way for the universe to encourage me to do my bills more often.
Huh. I love the idea of paying bills online, but is also frightens me. Really?
The only systemic drawback to using Paytrust to pay my bills is that it makes me lazy about the things that it doesn’t cover, and it keeps me from diligently reviewing all bills when they come in. On the other hand, I get the vast majority of my bills paid ontime.
Oh, another disadvantage is that, for bills that require paper (as opposed to e-billing), the bills get sent to a different address, which would make ending the service slightly less convenient, and also means I have to memorize a different zip code for one of the credit cards if I buy gas with it.
Still worth it. And because it’s independent of my bank, I can change banks without all my billing getting screwed up as badly.