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If you ever look at your budget, you might notice that one payment period is a bit more “bill heavy” than another. Wouldn’t it be nice if the due date on your bills was different? Believe it or not, you can change the due dates on some* of your monthly bills!
What most people do not realize is that creditors and even utility companies can change your payment due date. Not every single customer’s bill is due on the same date every month. Most of them have at least 2, if not 3, billing cycles they run each and every month.
If you think about it, that makes sense. There is just no way any billing department could cover all of those payments coming in just one time every month.
This can play to your advantage. These companies will allow you to change when your bill is due by moving you into another billing cycle period.
HOW TO CHANGE YOUR PAYMENT DATE
There are some steps you need to follow to help you actually change your payment due date. Make sure you follow them in order, to ensure that you change them properly the first time.
STEP 1: List all payments by due date and by type
This is where your budget will help. Take all of your monthly payments and list them out by the date they are due, the payee and the type of payment be it a fixed or changing amount.
This is important so that you can see when the bills are due and also which bills would work better into your budget if they were paid at a different time during the month.
For example, yours might look a little like this:
1st – Bank of America (fixed)
5th – AT&T Wireless (fixed)
5th – AT&T Uverse (fixed)
8th – Auto Loan #1
9th – City Water (variable)
12th – Electric company (variable — might try to level pay to make it fixed)
20th – Gas company(variable — might try to level pay to make it fixed)
21st – Auto Loan #2 (fixed)
25th – Insurance company (fixed)
…..just to list a few of your bills you might have.
STEP 2: Check the due dates
Now, look at the amounts you have to pay for each of those bills and when they are due. In addition, look at what your pay period is.
For example, if you are paid on the 15th of every month, it might help if you could move your water and even cable bill to a bit later in the month (when you don’t have a large mortgage payment coming out of your income). That might be easier on your budget. Here is how it might look if you moved payments around:
1st – Bank of America (fixed)
5th – AT&T Wireless (fixed)
5th – AT&T Uverse (fixed) MOVE TO AFTER 15th
8th – Auto Loan #1
9th – City Water (variable) MOVE TO AFTER 15th
12th – Electric company (variable — might try to level pay to make it fixed)
20th – Gas company(variable — might try to level pay to make it fixed)
21st – Auto Loan #2 (fixed)
25th – Insurance company (fixed)
STEP 3: Call the companies
Of course, moving your due date works better based on what your budget dictates, but you need to make sure that you can actually do that.
Make a call to your company and ask them if there is any way to move your payment to a date after the 15th of each month. If you find that they can not, then you might need to take a look and see if you can’t move the electric bill instead.
While it is ideal for you, keep in mind that you will still have to make your payment on the billing cycle date that they offer. Most will not allow you to just select any day of the month, but will instead, offer you an alternative date instead.
One other thing to keep in mind is that if you make a change to your payment due date, it may require a higher payment the first billing cycle. That will allow them to cover the additional period that you did not yet pay for (so if normally pay on the 12th and payment moves to the 25th, you will have to cover any usage that might have taken place during those 13 days between the original payment and new payment due date).
Now, finalized your budget so you make your payments on a schedule which works best for YOU.
