How to Pay the Bills in Five Minutes

Even though I work in the call center, I still have to convince myself enough that telephone banking is for me. Holding the printed copy of the bills payment slip gives me instant peace of mind.

So, yes, I still stand in line to pay my bills at the bank. But I value my time so much that I want to only make the process quick. So for other call center employees who would like to do the same, here’s how I pay my bills in five minutes.

Organize your bill statements
I always collect those printed statements and understand the billing cycle of each account. This is important so you won’t have to shell out some extra cash for late payments.

I then keep it in a small extended file (the plastic extended files sold at bookstores), labeled per utility. I usually keep the last three statements on the file, while I keep the rest on my file folder at home.

Set a budget to pay for the bills

I already mentioned in one of my previous posts that I use four separate envelopes to immediately allocate my payday money. So as soon as I have the budget set for paying the bills then I immediately proceed to the next step.

Prepare all the payment slips in advance

This is how the bank tellers got to know me. What I do is go to the bank once a month, paying all the bills way before the due date. In the branch where I frequently go to for this activity, I usually hand them the organized payment slips and money inside a paper envelope. All they have to do is to check the payment, print the confirmation slip and I’m off to go. All these in estimated time of five minutes for all transactions.

It will help if you will get say two or three blank copies of those payment slips so you can do all the writing at home. I noticed that a lot of people still take so much time, waiting for their turn to grab a pen and start writing as soon as they enter the bank.

They can do the same at home instead. This will minimize the chances of them missing a digit in one’s account number or writing a wrong amount on the payment slips.

Bring all the secondary payment goodies

So simple. Just bring extra pen, your cards for verification (if needed), identification cards with picture and loose change. The last item is very important to bring. There are times when they will round the figures off the payment slip because you just gave them an even amount and they don’t have much change (yet). Yes, it happens in some banks. If you don’t have loose change with you then be ready for the chance of them doing it, and you have to sign beside the ‘new’ amount to confirm your consent.

Go to the bank early

And why not? If your schedule permits and you already prepared the payment slips, there’s no way that you will experience delay. So if you hate the wait time on queue, then work on all the previous steps in advance up to this last tip.

Again, not until I give telephone banking a try, these are the steps on how I save my time and sanity while paying the bills in the bank. All in the estimated time of five minutes in all transactions.

Got another set of tips related to my post? Grab your space to speak out so we can know more about it.

Image Credit: Google Images

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