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Paying bills is rarely fun or easy. However you can use free bill pay services to make life a little easier and avoid mistakes. Let’s cover a few of the best free bill pay options and how you can use them.

Your Bank

The best option for free bill pay is probably your bank. If you have a checking account, it’s likely your bank offers online bill pay. You can set up a list of payees and have your bank send checks (or electronic payments) to service providers. If you’re looking for free bill pay, start at your bank.

If you use this option, you’ll most likely have to manually enter or approve each payment. This helps you keep tabs on your bills so you know where your money goes.

ACH Payments

If you want a system that doesn’t require any action on your part, you can set one up. Most service providers offer free bill pay by pulling money from your bank account each time a payment is due. To set this up, you provide bank information and give them permission to take the money.

This route takes less work each month, but you give service providers access to your bank account. They may accidentally take too much, or they may pull funds at a bad time - when your account is temporarily empty - resulting in overdraft charges. Make sure you have overdraft protection if you use this option.

Free Bill Pay Services

Several personal finance software providers offer free bill pay, but they usually aren't "free". You may need a premium subscription, or you may only get free bill pay for a limited time.

MyCheckFree is a truly free bill pay service allowing you to pay eBills to selected service providers.

To take advantage of online bill payment, you have to set up your bank account. Once everything is dialed in, life is easy going forward. Find out what it takes to set up online bill payment at your bank.

Note: this page only covers steps to pay bills from your bank account. If you want to set up online bill payment at your service provider (called ACH debit), you’ll need to follow instructions on their website.

1. Find Online Bill Payment Center

First, you’ll need to find where to pay bills on your bank’s website. Often you just click a link or tab that says 'Pay Bills'.

2. Add Payees

When you make an online bill payment, who does it go to? The recipient (your service provider) is called a 'payee'. Click a link that says something like 'Add Payees' or 'Manage Payees'.

3. Enter Payee Info

When adding a payee, you need to provide details to the online bill payment system:

• Payee name
• Mailing address for payments
• Your account number
• Additional information (phone numbers, memos, etc)

Some online bill payment systems recognize payees just by their name and zip code. They complete some of the information for you (like exactly who the check should be made payable to) and you just have to enter your account number.

4. Verify Information

After you create a payee, you should verify that everything is accurate. In future months, you’ll breeze through online bill payment without double-checking mailing addresses and account numbers - so take the time to do it now. You don’t want to send checks to a stranger (or to somebody else’s account) do you?

5. Select Payment Options

Some payees may have a relationship with your bank. They may be able to send your bill to the bank electronically. From there, you can either pay the bill manually or authorize the online bill payment system to pay each bill automatically.

You can also set up automatic recurring payments. For example, you know what your mortgage payment is and when it’s due each month, so you can put the payments on auto-pilot.

6. Monitor Your Account

Online bill payment can make life easy, but you shouldn’t ignore your accounts. Check in regularly to see that you have sufficient funds and make sure you can make sense of every transaction in the account.

You might make sure you have overdraft protection in case a payment goes through and your account is emptied. The least expensive form of overdraft protection is generally an overdraft line of credit.

Enjoy

Now that your online bill payment system is set up, you can enjoy the benefits. Each month, you should be able to just login to your account, click on a payee, and enter a payment amount. The bank takes care of everything else.