Now is the time to switch to online bill pay (if you haven't already done so)

[flibbitygiblets]

Calling on everyone I know to switch to paperless (online) systems. Save trees, reduce strain on the USPS!

-Checking and savings account statements
-Insurance (auto, home, renters, health etc.)
-Bill pay (utilities, credit cards, auto payments, insurance etc.)
-ID cards (memberships, insurance)
-Email your state, local and federal reps and ask them to stop sending you junk mail and send email or texts instead
-If you get paychecks, SSI, food and other government assistance in the mail, see if you can switch to auto deposits

Other ideas?

[Jirel]

1. There's a problem with that.

For maximum security, you should do it through your bank. But lits if banks just MAIL PAPER CHECKS.

If you do it through individual creditors, your data risk rises dramatically.

Save the USPS.

[customerserviceguy]

5. True on that

I worked at the front desk at a utility company in New Jersey before I retired, and I sorted mail in between customers at the window. You'd be amazed at all of the banks that mailed us checks in separate envelopes. And those were the ones too stupid to use the post office box we had set up to take in payments in a centralized national location. At least some banks were smart enough to mail multiple checks in the same envelope, but some of them were supposed to go to offices in other states.

If the banking industry really got it's shit together, they could solve a LOT of problems with delays in payment postings.

[customerserviceguy]

2. What would help

is if our maintenance drug providers, working with our insurers, got everybody synched up so that all 90 day maintenance supplies of drugs could be shipped at the same time. It makes no sense for my statin to come a month after my blood pressure medication, etc. And my lady gets about six maintenance meds, it seems that every two or three weeks there's another shipment in the mailbox.

I'd ask businesses to cut down on junk mail during this time, if they really want to help with the election.

[Hoyt]

3. +1. I put it off for years, but it's so much better than writing checks, recording

transactions, etc. And if you need to play the float at the end of the month, you can.

[customerserviceguy]

7. Almost fifteen years ago

my then 72 year old mother shamed me into paying my bills online like she had been doing for years. "Don't you have that computer degree???" she'd hit me with, knowing that I have an associates in computer network administration.

She's 87 today, and still uses her iPad to keep up with things.

[Hoyt]

11. LOL. They used to say mechanics always had cars needing maintenance.

I just kept putting off setting up payees, etc., one more month. Before I knew it, it turned into years.

[customerserviceguy]

17. You reminded me

of something almost forty years ago. I used to do taxes in people's homes, and I became expert at finding (and defending in audits) what used to be fully tax deductible costs for travel outside the area of a taxpayers "tax home", and got a reputation for it from all sorts of construction folk.

I went to plug in my printing-tape calculator at an outlet right near the table of a family I was visiting, and was told not to use that one, it didn't work. My reply was, "Isn't John an electrician?" The wife came back at me with, "Well, you know the old saying about the cobbler's children going barefoot."

I set up my bank account with my credit card companies, and I use credit cards to buy nearly everything, to get the points, miles, and cash back. I have them paid in full every month, so no worries about late fees, etc. The banks issuing the cards are pretty hack-proof if you use a strong password.

[CincyDem]

4. A large number of local bills you pay electronically actually go by USPS.

I had an issue with a payment and had to dig into it. I’m at one of the top 4-5 banks.

What I learned is that for most payments, when I do a digitally payment it goes into a file that gets sent to a printer at the close of business. The printer prints a check and it goes in the mail.

I agree with you your point but it’s not digital end to end.

[customerserviceguy]

8. Sometimes

the problem is the payee. They need to make efforts to collaborate with the banks to get their payment processing systems set up properly.

[zeusdogmom]

6. Works only if you have good reliable, secure (non-public) internet service

If you have good service, you live in a fairly densely populated area - good size town, city, suburb, surrounding area, etc. Rural or more remote area - not so much. And you certainly wouldn't want to do any kind of banking, bill pay, etc. via non-secure site in a library, coffee shop, etc.

[PoliticAverse]

9. That "strain on the USPS" is known as "revenue". n/t

[jcgoldie]

10. Should be some sort of regulation on political mailings

I burn wood to heat my house in winter and my wood stove can't even keep up with the amount of political junk mail in election years.

[brush]

12. One can also pay by phone. Just have your account number...

CC number or bank routing/acc. number. It's quick and easier than going online even. I do it every month.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

13. Please don't do that. You're helping the GOP privatize our USPS.

They want to relegate the USPS to nothing more than a handler of junk mail. After that they will defund it and shut it down.

Many of us are old fashioned and want to see what we're being billed for without logging onto an on-line site which can be hacked. We also prefer to have a paper trail of all purchases. Eventually, those bill records will be recycled to make more paper.

I truly feel our society is making a potentially serious mistake in trusting the internet for handling financial matters.

Remember that prescription drug deliveries, package deliveries, tax documents and people's routine bills are the key crucial items they handle. Removing or reducing those items only gives the GOP Libertarians more excuses for privatizing and ultimately eliminating the USPS.

KY

[MichMan]

14. Won't the decline in mail volume and revenue be detrimental to the Post Office?

[Demsrule86]

16. Yes...and with recycled paper ...no need for this.

[Demsrule86]

15. No we need to save the post office...we need jobs.