Two little hidden gems for
reducing your monthly costs.
It’s believed that next to France, Irish people write nearly 80 million cheques a year. A recent study by the ECB found that when all the costs are included, each cheque costs €3.55. Ouch!
So if you do the math it works out that 80 million cheques pa = more than 2.5 cheques for every second in the year and that the annual cost is €284 million!
Now only 30 per cent of that cost is attributable to the consumer. The rest, well they come from all the other charges associated with a bank current account. These are charges for standing orders, direct debits, overdraft fees, statement requests, interest etc.
So are we mad to continue with this method of payment, and are there any alternatives around.
The answer is yes, and it’s at your local post office.
An POST (Irish Postal Service) provides a free online service – mybills.ie and BillPay, an over the counter method.
It has a comprehensive list of over a hundred companies such as Electric Ireland, Bord Gais and many more. So it’s a ‘one-stop-shop’ to pay virtually any household bill, and most importantly, it’s free!
The online service provides flexibility such as:
- Pay bills online
- Pay bills in increments
- Automatically schedule payments
- Keep a record of household bill payments
- You can set up automatically an amount you wish to pay off a bill each month
Again I must emphasise that this service is free.
For those people who are not so computer literate An Post’s BillPay service offers you many of the features above in 1,100 post offices across Ireland, free of charge, six days a week. More like suiting your schedule than the banks!
So why pay hefty fees and overdraft costs to banks when this little gem is available to you.
http://www.anpost.ie/anpost/maincontent/personal+customers/money+matters/billpay/
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