[amol4184]

Originally Posted by bharatbits

I am quite fed up with paying all these cooking gas bills, internet bills, electricity bills, milk bills, telephone bills every month that i just started ignoring them and began paying once every 6 months once the bill adds upto a sizable amount. Ofcourse there's a late fee but that's a small amount to pay for the convenience i feel. I am not going to runaway without paying the bills either.

Avoiding paying the maid too on a monthly basis until she asks for it. Paid for 6 months at once few days ago along with a generous addition for not inconveniencing me every month. She is also comfortable with it and has no issues.

This is a rather interesting take on convenience.

I think my OCD will never let me do this nor will any of those agencies to whom I am supposed to pay. I am in MH currently, the electricity gets cut after 3 months if I am not wrong and same for BSNL landline/broadband. I don't personally pay bills in India but I have trained my parents to use mixture of payment methods mentioned above and my dad is now versed with Gpay and such.
For my own rent, insurance, and all regular big expenses I have tied my bank account for auto debit and Amazon type expenses are all tied to Amazon's own CC.

Also that maid of yours is a gem I tell you. Never let her go!
Forget 6 months in one go, maid at my parents house has asked for payment every 15 days in the past and on numerous occasions we have paid her in advance.
I am really surprised at this generous maid. Personally, if my employer doesn't pay me if I don't ask I will be super pissed even if they give me bonus every 6 months

[Raghuwire]

Originally Posted by RedTerrano

How do I pay my monthly bills?

I embraced BHIM almost since the day it was available. Works smooth as silk and 100% Indian. Since then, I have managed to get my milkman, vegetable vendor, grocer, maid and security guy on board.

Hi. Do we have to do it manually every month, or does it have option to directly debit the bill payments automatically?

[fine69]

Everything is paid by Credit Cards because Points!

Every 2-3 months I'm able to get a decent household product by redeeming points, not sure why anybody would do it differently.

[Romeo_Mike]

I have gradually moved all my utility bill payments to UPI/Gpay just for the convenience it offers. Although I must admit, I am quite a late adopter of this payment method. I have a belief that everything comes at a cost. And the convenience of UPI might have risks associated with it. So had to establish a few SOPs before taking the plunge, e.g. I have linked only a couple of designated accounts that have a ceiling on balance to be maintained.

I absolutely hated the wallet model championed by Paytm and have never used it; simply because the idle money in the wallet will be earning exactly 0 interest while the operator was getting to play around with the float.

[Tucker48]

I use Amazon pay UPI wherever possible even for transferring funds as nowadays there is a charge for using IMPS and NEFT takes sometime.
My broadband service provider Tata doesn't show up on Amazon UPI so for that I use Tata sky broadband app.

[RedTerrano]

Originally Posted by Raghuwire

Hi. Do we have to do it manually every month, or does it have option to directly debit the bill payments automatically?

The closest BHIM comes to scheduled payments is something they call Mandate, but I think it is a one time non repeating thing. Yeah, doesn't make sense, but hey its the Govt.

[noopster]

I pay all bills online these days- can't remember the last time I dropped a cheque or stood in a queue! My preferred way is to pay the bill from the service provider's website by credit card. At the end of each month I pay my credit card bills online using my internet banking account. I very rarely roll balances over so this method is most convenient for me.

The focus over the last year or two has been to reduce cash payments to a minimum. Sometime this year I started using Google Pay extensively for micro-payments and vendor payments that would previously be paid in cash. The only irritant is that it leads to a cluttered statement when tax return filing time comes!

Since mostly everything is on credit card, tracking expenses is a breeze. AMEX is my preferred card mostly because of the excellent and prompt service they provide and hearteningly more and more service providers are offering payment options by AMEX.

I am not a big user of wallets, but I do use PayTM selectively- topping up prepaid mobile accounts is much easier there than even through the service provider! Also used it to make a flood donation for Assam last year because the receipt generation was instant. Amazon Pay is also very convenient for online purchases and I top it up with my Amazon Pay card which gives 5% cashback, so it's win-win!

[RYP]

Originally Posted by Romeo_Mike

I absolutely hated the wallet model championed by Paytm and have never used it; simply because the idle money in the wallet will be earning exactly 0 interest while the operator was getting to play around with the float.

Paytm wallet was supposed to be topped up using Credit Card once, then used to pay for everything the whole month, thereby decluttering your statement in a big way. I see no reason to move funds from a CASA account to wallet unless one doesn't have a CC. Wallet is still a viable business model for Paytm and will remain to be until Credit Cards are dead

Originally Posted by noopster

The only irritant is that it leads to a cluttered statement when tax return filing time comes!

I have a neat life hack to deal with these. I opened a Payments Bank account and dedicated it to UPI only. I move a certain amount, say 10k in the beginning of the month from my primary account with proper description to Payments Bank Account. Then do all the micro mini transactions from this account. Saves a lot of irritants trust me and helps greatly to not overshoot spends as we see the balance reducing from ~10k towards zero

[mpthy]

All my bills are paid online through a wallet due to the convenience of one single window for all utility payments. My current wallet of choice is Amazon Pay, replacing Paytm, simply because of familiarity, as I use Amazon extensively for shopping and there is no specific use left for Paytm.

On Amazon Pay, I use my credit card(s) to make the actual payment, thus also collecting the points from my card(s).

[veyron_head]

I use samsung pay. Its only available on some samsung phones but its a fantastic app. I was tired of transaction failures in Google pay. Samsung pay is pretty consistent.

[Zen Av8r]

I use the Amazon Pay to pay my Electricity and Telephone Bills. Most other payments are by Credit card either through Bill Desk or other portals. 95% of my payment transactions are digital.

[streetfighter]

I've used Mobikwik, Freecharge, GPay, Amazon pay, PayTM, etc in the past to make all my regular bill payments. But gradually the offers and cashback have dried up. Of late, I find Payzapp (by HDFC Bank) app quite good. It has integrations with all major billers (they use Bharat Billpay in the backend) so it is as good as other bill pay apps. The good part is they are still giving cashback 5% to 10% depending on the biller. The best part is you can use any Bank's credit card for the payment. I have a ICICI Amazon credit card and I use that within Payzapp for all my bill payments, so I get cashback + amazon wallet credit at the same time.
Another added feature in Payzapp is that the wallet is equivalent to "PayZapp Card" which is a virtual prepaid card you can use for online shopping as well (saves you from sharing your actual credit card).

[umeshd]

Option 2

For all bill payments (& annual Insurance premiums etc), I have setup billers as View & Pay on all my credit cards and setup alarms on calendar to check for bills in case sms / emails don't come for any reason. Only for Airtel, had to setup direct debit because View & Pay isn't working for some reason.

I strictly use Credit Card(s) to get full advantage of billing cycles (have 2 cards with billing dates 15 days apart) and never use Debit cards except for ATM withdrawals.

[headbanger]

I use all options except cash. Don't recall the last time I paid by visiting a dedicated cash counter.
The ground rule is whosoever pays the max cashback, just pay through that channel. The check is that I don't go overboard with too much analysis who is paying the max at a certain point in time. Just a cursory check across apps and bill paid.

[N33raj]

I do not have a credit card(!) as i realized it was giving me bad money habits. I have a debit card and i make all payments by either cheque or cash.

For the internet and cable TV at home, i have worked out yearly payment plans; so the internet provider gives me 3 months free if i pay for 1 year, i pay him by cheque every January first week. The cable guy gives me 1 month off if i pay for 1 year and he gets a cheque in Jan too.

For electricity, both my home and office are paid by cheque every month.

Groceries, vegetables, fish etc are worked out with the neighbourhood shops and they give me 1 month's credit which gets paid in cash. The fact that i am a regular customer means i get the best of what is available on that day.

The maids are paid in cash every month on 10th.

Vehicle insurance is easy, when they call for renewal, i simply tell them to come to my office and collect the cheque themselves! And they do! Same for my personal insurance policies as well.

Anything i order on Amazon etc, i make sure cash on delivery is available and choose that option. If i must use a credit card, i borrow my wife's card, use it and immediately give her the cash to cover my purchase.

In Delhi, cash is preferred by the kirana shops anyway and so i have worked out similar systems with them; plus they deliver everything to your door so no problems there. I have done more or less the same thing with the produce vendors as well; i call and tell them what i want and they bring it home, i pay them after checking the items.

In case you are wondering why i am wasting such a colossal amount of time by going the old fashioned way, i am not; two days in every month the office peon tots up the numbers and gives them to me; i write the cheques for payment or cash withdrawal and off he goes to pay! The reason i can do this is because he is trustworthy and has proven himself reliable. The fun part was the last few months as i am still in Delhi and my parents are in Guwahati and bill payments were a bit of a hassle; solved that by having my cheque book couriered over to Delhi and then i signed them and sent back. Father is handling all the cash payments for now and i will take care of it once i go back in October.
Just my way of rebelling against this new payment system malarkey!