I was going to order some return labels with my name only until I realized I can put the envelope in the printer and print the return address. I should do like jannie and do several at a time.

"Time is money" as they say...

I have a rubber stamp for my address and do up about 3/4 of the box of envelopes when I get them. Occasionally I don't want my return address on the envelope so I have some for those occasions. I used to prep the envelopes for the utility bills that didn't have envelopes and the mortgage envelope and keep with my bill paying stuff. That made bill paying quicker. Now I pay most everything online or by phone so I only mail one bill - the phone bill. I also now pay about 4 months worth at a time so I have a credit for 3 months. That saves $6.00/yr in fees and saves me time too. The interest I'd earn wouldn't approach that so it's financially to my benefit. I may even bump it up to 6 months worth or more, but haven't yet. When I get to it, I'm going to see about setting up bill paying through my bank.

I've also used the printer before to print envelopes for common uses, like to a place I used to send a lot of rebates and that was handy.

I also printed up a sheet of labels with the info asked for on the rebate form. (Menards made their rebates VERY simple.) Then, I'd just take the rebate form, slap on a label, put the rebate receipt with it and repeat for all the rebates I had to go there, shove them into an envelope that was preprinted, attach postage and mail it. Very efficient. But alas, they don't have the rebate stuff they used to have.... :(

Cynic you might want to think twice about setting up bill paying through the bank. While it will save time, there is usually a fee to discontinue the payment. Sometimes, the banks make errors with paying the accounts too.

Jannie thanks for the tip. I will use my return address lables from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

I pay power, phone and card bills via my bank account, and as a senior I avoid the fee per item that is the usual charge.

I often - but not always - check the amounts out of account with payments reported on next invoice and have not found any errors, to date.

ole joyful

That's a great idea ,Jannie ! It's one of those things you can do while watching tv .

I'll check into that lexi7, thanks for the tip. I'm not in a big hurry because I have most all set up anyway. I thought it would be a little quicker and more efficient to have them all through one place.

I also cut clutter by going with paperless statements on my credit cards. I can see them online and not run the risk of misdirected/lost/stolen mail giving my information to the wrong people. Have had that happen too many times. The post office is not my favorite place and anything I can do to keep from giving them money is a great satisfaction to me.

My bills are automatically drafted at my bank and there is no charge at all. AT&T is the only bill I have to confirm in order for them to take the money.

Thanks for the convenient time saving tip!

Jannie,
I used to have AT&T for my long distance. It was set up to automatically be deducted each month from my checking...no need to confirm it.

Sue

I hate writing cheques, posting them. I now overpay some regular bills so I only write a cheque 2-3 times a year. I do make it a point to verify the statements though.
I also invested in a paper shredded for ID security but rather than shred the entire page, I tear off any portion that has personal/account details to shred. The rest of the paper gets recycled as is.

I spent some time researching the online banking thing. I was a bit surprised. My sister signed up and has been using it without charge (although they tried to and there were some battles). Never thought about the charge to STOP using it! Well going through all the fine print and the agreements, and the part where the $2.95/mo fee is waived, yadda, yadda, well what did I notice? In order to do online bill paying your online account would be automatically upgraded to the "premier" online account and the $2.95/mo fee would be waived for as long as you use the online bill paying. If you stop, well, they didn't say there was any way to get it put back to the free online account. So I decided to stick with the normal, totally free online account where I could check statements and account balances, and keep paying the bills as I have been.

Then I went to Qwest and did some more digging. Now they allow payments without a fee. Apparently I could even put it onto my credit card to get cashback! Not totally sure about that but I'm going to check it out. Now I don't have to prepay many months which bothered me since you have to prepay your phone bill anyway which bothers me.

So lexi7, another BIG THANK YOU for that tip! People should check into that if they're interested. Although in reality I would likely keep paying it through them anyway, which means it likely wouldn't impact me, I just don't like the sneaky way it's set up. I'm going to continue to pay it through the companies.

I set up free online babking and bill paying with my bank. It's great, saves me 41 cents postage for every bill and payments are never late. When I was away for a month on vacation, I sent a small anount to each of my creditors, and they continued billing me as usual. No late fees. No reminders I was "delinquent." But beware the fine print. I am only allowed to transfer funds between my checking and savings accounts six times a month. If I do more, the bank will close my online account. So I only transfer twice-on the first and fifteenth of the month. By the way, I was the original poster with the idea of sticking return address labels on plain envelopes. I thought of that because my husband injured his hand and it's hard for him to do a lot of writing.

Cynic, you are very welcome - so glad to be of help :)

I asked at the bank the other day and at my request they call me a "Senior" at age 60. Which means that I can pay utility bills and some others, e.g. income tax instalments at no fee.

If I need to pay more than a couple of thousand dollars of Federal and Provincial Income Tax when I prepare my return, next year they require that I pay most of that amount by quarterly instalments.

Good wishes for a fine weekend.

ole joyful