Why I Don’t Pay Bills Online: Diary of a Cheapskate

You can never be too rich or too thin, they say, and I’ve never had reason to dispute that.

(Well, not much reason. “They” don’t want to get between me and the nearest McDonald’s whenever McRib returns to the menu, if you get my drift. Yes, I will have fries with my rapidly Supersizing rear end.)

So it only stands to reason that you can’t ever be too cheap, right?

Right. But modern technology doesn’t exactly make it easy.

I’m decidedly old-school when it comes to fiscal self-control. My rules are scientifically proven to work:

• No entering Target with an ATM card or without a shopping list that’s carved in stone. I refuse to go without heat for a month because I couldn’t resist the lure of a 32-pound box of Cheez-Its perched seductively beside that $1.98 bag of kitchen sponges I’d budgeted for.
• No using credit cards to buy gasoline or movie tickets, no matter how much more convenient it is. In the first case, I might go crazy and assume I could afford a full tank. In the second case, it’s bad enough I paid real money to see Saw IV. No way I’m paying late fees and finance charges on top of that.

Finally, most crucially, no paying bills online. Ever. Yes, yes, everyone says my life would be much easier if I did. Flusher, too, once I wasn’t having to buy stamps every two days because the price went up. Again.

But it’s not like high speed internet service grows on cheap trees, “everyone.” And computers don’t exactly plug themselves into the wall for free. And don’t even get me started on mouse pads. At some point during all this online bill paying, I’d need a new one. Ka-ching!

I think I’ve made my case.

Clearly my issues with this go way beyond the price of postage. (Especially since I bought up every available “Forever” stamp the day they went on sale last spring. People rolled their eyes, but just wait until I’m still paying 2007 prices to mail postcards from Dollywood in 2019. Then we’ll see who’s laughing at whom!)