How to be rewarded for paying your bills
In my recent bank switchover I’ve started paying for everything I can with my rewards credit card. Not only do I need to hit a threshold of $5,000 in six months to get bonus reward points, but the more points I get in regular spending the more I can offset the $65 annual fee. One easy way of doing this is to start paying bills with the card and immediately pay it off.
It took a bit of leg work, but I have almost all of my bills automated on my credit card now. There are still a few outliers but I am now paying my cell phone, home internet, car insurance, gym and some other recurring memberships with my credit card. Unfortunately my mortgage and student loans won’t allow me to pay with a credit card (imagine that?). There are services that allow you to funnel money through them to pay those bills but the fees normally aren’t worth the trouble.
One more bill I thought I’d never be able to pay with my credit card was my children’s preschool. The preschool we go to is a small, independent preschool that still had us sending over paper checks every month. Not only was this a little old school for me but my wife and I could never remember the amount to pay (was it $259 or $256?) and we’d often forget to pay it on time. If there was a holiday or something and the school was closed this also caused it to be late. I posed the question to the school director about paying via PayPal. She was at first hesitant because she wasn’t sure how she could keep track of it but I was able to convince her to do a trial run. Once I showed her how easy it was to for her to get an email with the payment confirmation she was onboard. On top of that – I can use my Starwood Amex to pay the bill – earning me points for paying it! I can use those points to take the kids on a nice trip, a win win!
So think outside the box when paying bills and be diligent about asking people to accept PayPal for recurring bills. How can you funnel the majority of your expenses through a card that rewards you for paying with it? As long as you’re disciplined at paying it off you can earn some great perks for just paying the bills.
What creative ways do you have for earning bonuses for everyday things you pay for? Please share in the comments!