How to Avoid Making Late Payments

Making late payments on bills can become a vicious cycle. You start by missing the payment deadline, then you’re stuck with fees, making the bill even more expensive and difficult to pay. When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, as nearly 60% of Americans do, it can be easy to overspend and fall into a late payment cycle. Here are a few tips for avoiding this all too common situation. 

Sign Up for Auto Pay

Having payments automatically come out of your account may sound scary, but it can be one of the best ways to keep up with your bills. Several companies offer discounts for auto pay, because when you auto pay, they know the payment will arrive on time. The only trick to this is making sure you have the money in your account when the payment is due.

Set Bill-Paying Reminders

If you have trouble remembering to pay your bills on time, consider setting reminders! Smart phones have many capabilities, but their standout feature is notifying you when things are happening. Setting your own reminders for paying bills will take some of the stress out of the process. It’s one of those situations where automation works to your advantage. 

Schedule Bill-Paying Time

OK, but what if you see that notification, but you’re too busy to pay your bills then and there? And what if you don’t know when you’ll have the time? Getting your bills paid is important, so you should schedule time for it. This can be one evening a month before your first bill is due where you pay all of them at once, or you can set aside time once a week and pay whichever ones are due the soonest.

Stay On Top of Your Finances

Remembering bills are due isn’t always the problem. Sometimes, the money isn’t there by the time you sit down to pay them. If this is the case for you, spend some time with your budget. Create a budget, and stay on top of tracking it. Your smartphone can help you here. Download an app like Mint or YNAB (short for “you need a budget”) that helps you stay within budget and notify you if you go over. 

Make Weekly Payments

It may help to pay your bills right when you get paid. This can be weekly, biweekly, or however often you get a paycheck. By making payments out of each paycheck, you make sure your bills are paid on time before you use money for more fun expenses like restaurants and entertainment. 

Pronto Power is an Arlington prepaid power company with cheap rates that offers online, text and MoneyGram location payment options, so paying your bill is the easy part. Looking for more affordable prepaid electricity in Texas? Give us a call at 1-844-621-2852.