Going paperless: Can you make the switch?

I recently stumbled upon this interesting article, How to Go Entirely Paperless at Home, which I found at Wisebread.com. The article discusses pros and cons of going paperless at home. You should check it out.

For us, we go paperless when we can. We receive our electric bill via email, but yet are hesitant to sign up for paperless billing with our major credit card. What is keeping me from going paperless on that end? I was just ready to take the big plunge with the credit card and realized that for two months straight I hadn't gotten a bill for the electric. I searched my Gmail, even checking the spam in case it got marked as such by accident. No dice. Then one day out of the blue, I get a letter from my electric stating that my email was bouncing back to them and to please update my account to provide them with a valid email address. It was then that I realized that my email had an extra letter at the end of the .com and it was no wonder why their email wasn't getting through.

As a matter of course, I pay that bill every month and know about when it is due, so it wasn't late by any means. It was just odd that no bill came by email since I like to know what to expect when it is due. But I don't enter the account profile when I pay online so that extraneous letter at the end of the .com was not done by me. Thinking back, last summer, there was a message about a possible hack. Did someone get in there and mess up accounts? I just don't know. But it got me thinking that there is some comfort to having a bill come by mail, at least for now.

For the bills that we use credit card autopay on, I don't mind them going paperless. But for the bills that I need to effect payment on myself, I am hesitant. I like the security of having a visual reminder hitting my mailbox.

My tips for going paperless would be to have a designated email for them. I prefer Gmail, and that is mainly because I am in love with the labeling feature. You can tag incoming emails with a label and even color the label so that it sticks out. If going paperless, ensure that all incoming bills are tagged and spend the time reviewing them each month, as you would a paper bill. Recently, we found a hotel overcharge and needed to make a phone call to straighten it out.

Another tip I would suggest is to install a .pdf creator program on your computer. When I pay bills online, I use the print feature and print the receipt to .pdf, which I then store in my hard drive in separate folders by payee. If possible, print the bill to .pdf and store it electronically as well.

My tech savvy husband is a whiz at Excel and he creates a spread sheet each year that lists all of our bills along with their due dates. We can check this spread sheet at any time. He sets the cells to turn red when a bill due date is approaching. So at a glance, we know when something is getting close to its payment date. This is especially helpful for those bills that are quarterly like water, insurance, etc. We review this spreadsheet and update it each time we pay bills, which is usually right after the paycheck hits the bank.

Another technique that I employ is another Google tool. I use the Google Calendar to keep track of my appointments, kids' parties, bills, etc. If a bill needs to be mailed out, I set a reminder in my calendar to email me a certain amount of time in advance. So if I have a bill due on the 15th, my calendar will send me an email telling me I need to get it in the mailbox at least a week prior. This is a great feature if you have something happen like we did where our car was totaled due to an accident and the new car payment date is different than the last. With the new credit card legislation, we had a few bills move in their due date to comply with the law. An email reminder via Google Calendar is just the ticket to remind me when a due date is approaching.

Can you make the switch? I'm hoping to. I want to confidently check the yes box when offered the option of going paperless. I do think it will take some planning and liberal use of the tips above, as well as those listed in the Wisebread article, but I think it can be done.

Have you made the transition and gone paperless? What tips do you have to share? Please comment and let us know what worked for you and if you had any trouble letting go of wanting your bills to come via regular mail.