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The pleasure and possibilities of living a time-shifted life?
TaoPhoenix:
I time-shift my bills, but I actually do it forward. And then I time-shift my pay back. I'm currently up to paying my next month's bills at the very least with my prior month's paycheck. It sounds crazy to do... but I have software that actually lets me (and encourages me) to do so. Of course, it drives some of my bill people crazy, because their systems aren't set up to keep track of someone who is ahead... I wonder why... :-\
But it's incredibly freeing. I don't pay bills on the date when they say I should... I pay them at the time of month when it best fits my schedule. And I always have leeway if something unexpected comes up. Some might say that's just savings... but my savings is totally separate. The paychecks that I have set aside untouched haven't been allocated at all. Quite hard to effectively explain... but it works.
-wraith808 (August 07, 2012, 07:48 AM)
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Not all that tough to do. I pay off my car insurance for the year within about 5 months of the yearly cycle, and then I try to do my yearly savings (or in this case desperation while unemployed! :o ) in the summer.
If a vendor's system gets grumpy with "forward paying" you can try a Restricted Funds account. I run a double checking, one of which gets used strictly for certain bills and I don't even have the atm card in my wallet when I go out. So then as you get slack in your paychecks, you just dump money in there, and then just pay off whatever random bill that doesn't like forward pays. (The US Post Office PO Box Renewal fee is a good example.)
wraith808:
Not all that tough to do. I pay off my car insurance for the year within about 5 months of the yearly cycle, and then I try to do my yearly savings (or in this case desperation while unemployed! :o ) in the summer.
-TaoPhoenix (August 07, 2012, 10:10 AM)
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It's a little more involved than that. An example. I change jobs today. My new job pays 30 days in arrears, but my old job pays on time. Let's say that both pay on the first. Since my pay is time shifted, on 9/1 I'm actually releasing funds from 7/1 (full paycheck from old job). With that, I pay bills from November, including estimated utilities based on the average for the year. It doesn't matter that I actually haven't gotten paid from my new job. It also doesn't matter that I didn't get paid from my old job (except for the 8 days in August). That money used was already made two months ago. And is paying bills from two months in the future. I'd have to (1) not get paid for two months, and then (2) not pay bills for two months for everything to be back to normal.
TaoPhoenix:
It's a little more involved than that. An example. I change jobs today. My new job pays 30 days in arrears, but my old job pays on time. Let's say that both pay on the first. Since my pay is time shifted, on 9/1 I'm actually releasing funds from 7/1 (full paycheck from old job). With that, I pay bills from November, including estimated utilities based on the average for the year. It doesn't matter that I actually haven't gotten paid from my new job. It also doesn't matter that I didn't get paid from my old job (except for the 8 days in August). That money used was already made two months ago. And is paying bills from two months in the future. I'd have to (1) not get paid for two months, and then (2) not pay bills for two months for everything to be back to normal.
-wraith808 (August 08, 2012, 12:55 PM)
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As a dear family member once said, "we are actively agreeing". Sometimes you can't pay bills forward, that's the same concept I had with the Restricted Funds account - you "Allocate" the money, and it's not there for you to play with at the beach getting ice cream.
I used the US Post as a reason - I was one day early the other day to renew my PO Box. No amount of anything will let me pay that forward. But by shifting that into the Restricted Account, you just burn calendar days until it becomes sensible to pay it. In Accounting methodology, you Accrued it as Pending on 7-31, and transferred funds to the Restricted Account, then you just burn time until it goes (banks work backwards) debit bank credit Postal Fee.
(Edit: I use a REALLY fancy system that involves a triple-switch, but it's just smoke and mirrors to deal with the fact that I never have my Restricted ATM card on me *ever*. So it's just a fancy real-time bank switch per transaction)
wraith808:
Well, as long as what you have works for you. I haven't found anything yet that I can't pay in advance... it's just that their systems don't sometimes keep up with it as a forward payment. This includes a PO Box... I'm not sure why your post office doesn't let you re-up in advance... mine doesn't care.
TaoPhoenix:
Well, as long as what you have works for you. I haven't found anything yet that I can't pay in advance... it's just that their systems don't sometimes keep up with it as a forward payment. This includes a PO Box... I'm not sure why your post office doesn't let you re-up in advance... mine doesn't care.
-wraith808 (August 08, 2012, 01:49 PM)
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Several times, the person was nice, they seemed helpless; "We can't renew a box earlier than 30 days before it's due."
Dunno how to answer that. Maybe some Postal reps in other states hacked/patched the system.
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