Sometimes it’s easier to just put your bills on auto-pay instead of manually paying them each month. But putting your bills on auto-pay can negatively change your relationship to money and can make saving money harder than it should be. Here are five reasons why ditching auto-pay improves your relationship to money and puts you more in tune with your finances:
1. You’ll gain a deeper appreciation for the value of your dollars.
If you have to manually pay bills, you’ll gain a deeper appreciation for the value of your dollars in a way that you might not have if your bills are automated. If your bills are automated, you are somewhat disconnected from feeling the true impact of each of your expenses. Manually paying your bills forces you to confront each transaction and appreciate how much you’ve had to work to pay for that specific expense.
2. You’ll be motivated to save more.
There’s nothing that motivates you to save money more than seeing how much money you’ve spent. Manually paying your bills makes you question whether that expense was really worth it and whether you could reduce your expenses for next month.
If you want to build financial discipline, the best thing you can do is to stop detaching yourself from the process of spending money and actually feel the impact of how much your spending. Manually paying your bills makes spending money more difficult and makes saving money a more attractive goal.
Seeing how much money you could have saved is like a challenge to improve your spending habits. Similarly, if you’re always excellent at staying within your budget, seeing how long you’ve been able to stay on track will want to make you want to keep that streak of healthy financial habits.
Also, if your bills are on auto-pay, you’re likely not giving yourself the opportunity to manually review each transaction and know whether or not there’s more room for you to grow in pursuit of your financial goals. Ditching auto-pay makes you stop going through the motions and start adopting a growth mindset.
3. You’ll have fewer financial oversights.
If you have your bills on autopay, you might not actively take time to review all of your bills, which increases the likelihood that mistakes will slip by.
Maybe you get charged for a subscription — or two or three — that you intended to cancel but forgot about. Maybe the bill you had on auto-pay didn’t get paid like it should have. Or maybe autopay deducted the money from your account sooner than you anticipated, leaving you in a pickle.
Manually paying your bills gives you the chance to get in tune with exactly where your money is going — and when. Stopping auto-pay prevents expenses like subscriptions from piling up without you even realizing it.
4. You’ll have more control over your spending habits.
Knowledge is power. If you know exactly what you’ve spent and where and when you’ve spent it, and you’ll be able to use that knowledge to identify patterns in your spending and pinpoint common triggers that lead you to spend money. Once you identify those triggers, you can put a stop to excess spending and get your budgeting in check.
Or maybe you’ve just let lifestyle inflation get the better of you. Manually paying your bills gives you the opportunity to put a stop to lifestyle inflation and allocate more money toward your financial goals.
Even if you stay perfectly within your budget every month, knowing exactly where your money is going will only motivate you to continue your good financial habits. Everyone should know exactly where each dollar is going — and when — regardless of their spending habits.
5. You’ll gain peace of mind.
Nothing is more anxiety-inducing than not knowing exactly how much you owe, which can be one consequence of detaching yourself from the bill-paying process with autopay. The less you look at your finances, the more you’ll feel anxious about your money; conversely, the more time you spend managing your money, the more in control you’ll feel because there won’t be any guesswork about your financial situation.
Knowledge is not only power — it’s peace of mind.
What to do when you stop using auto-pay
Instead of using auto-pay, you can either pay each bill as you receive them (which is ideal because it prevents bills from piling up and it gives you peace of mind), or you can set a designated time each week to pay your bills.
Regardless of whether you pay your bills immediately or if you pay your bills each week or each pay period, you should still set aside time regularly to double-check that you’ve paid all of your bills and check in with your finances. You can even set a recurring calendar reminder if you’d like.
Building this routine will help you make sure all of your bills are paid on time and will give you the opportunity to make sure you’re still on track to meet your other financial goals.
Deleting auto-pay will help you stay more in touch with where your money is going and how much you’re spending, which will give you more control over your spending habits. Staying in touch with your finances will strengthen your appreciation for the value your dollars and motivate you to save more and spend less.
If you replace auto-pay with a routine of manually paying bills and reviewing your progress toward your financial goals, you’ll stop going through the motions and start adopting a growth mindset when it comes to your finances.