I bought stamps yesterday. Nearly nine bucks will get you a book these days and I bought two of them. I knew it had been a while, so I checked my records and found that it had been more than three months since I purchased my last two books. For some this might not be a big deal, but property management companies get a lot of bills. Hometown gets a stack of bills almost every day.

Whether you get a lot of bills or not, if you own a computer, you should be taking advantage of online bill pay for every bill. It is easy money saved.

1) I have not encountered a bank that does not offer this service. I have three different bank accounts (to cleanly separate different parts of my working life and personal life) with banks that all have nice bill pay systems. I enroll for paperless statements where I can and have every bill setup so that my bank pays it for me directly. No stamps, no checks, no envelopes. It takes me more time to log the transactions in my checkbook register than it does to actually pay the bill. It’s that fast.

2) The setup is easy too. Just log onto your bank website, follow the instructions and take the time to do it. And heck, if you get stuck, look up the bank’s contact information on the website and call them. As for setting up your bills for payment, most of the time all you need is your account number and address where you send the payment and the website sets up the rest. When you receive the bill, you just need to enter the amount to be paid and when to pay it and you’re done – fast and free. A nice feature is that you set the date for your bank to send funds to the payee; saving the angst of the “beat the bank” game where you put your bill in the mail and cross your fingers that it makes it on time. What’s fascinating now is that some banks are offering apps where you can manage and pay your bills right from your phone. I use PSECU’s app for paying my personal bills and it’s awesome.

3) If you’re already paying bills online by going to each account’s website, logging in and paying each one individually by debit/credit card or checking account, STOP!!! This is an inefficient way to pay your bills. You have to keep track of every username and password and go to each individual website when you get bills. Instead, setup these accounts for paperless billing, have statements sent to your email and when you receive the bill, simply log into your bank account and set the date that you want it to be paid.

I hope that I’m making this sound easy because it really is. Take the time to get acquainted with your bank’s website and take the time to setup each bill. Online bill pay has arrived and deposits are next. You will save a ton of money on postage and save a ton of your own time.

More money and more time? Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Sam Gorgone, Hometown Property Management Services, LLC