Does anyone else pay their bills yearly ?? I'm in awe at this.

[FoamingAtTheUterus]

Was chatting to a friend earlier who mentioned she was glad that we were in Feb and all her bills were done. Turns out she hoards her January salary, literally living off beans on toast and the entire lot is.stashed for her bills.......her outgoings are fairly low because she's tight careful with money so no subscriptions it TV licence etc. Also has no mortgage.

Me and everyone else were like this she said she likes it because it frees her for the year and she knows where she is moneywise. Does anyone else do this ?? I've never heard of it before but apparently the short term crap month when January is pretty crap anyway is worth it.

Erm no I have never heard that, I pay car tax, insurance and breakdown annually. And home insurance. But the regular bills certainly not, I'd never afford it.

What, everything? Gas and electric and council tax and water and car insurance and home insurance and broadband and phone and everything?

I pay my insurance yearly as it worked out about £30 cheaper.

We always choose the annual option where possible, but surely some thing's don't sync, Ie, council tax always comes out in around March/April doesn't it? Unless she's been clever to manage it this way with everything else.

Yes.

We didn't get into the details but I know she and her partner don't drive. And imagine utilities are low as they're both in work all day. We were all sat there like floundering fish when she said it 😂😂😂😂🤯

It would suit me to pay UK bills annually but the only people who accepted the request were insurance companies.

Council tax etc actively discouraged it.

Just re-read it and can see it might mean she has it all stashed ready to go for when the bills do arise.

I don't get it. Does she actually pay all her bills in January or she keeps her January wages to cover bills for the rest of the year?

Rachael the money goes into a savings account so imagine the CT will sit in there ready for April. That was the first thing I asked.
I'm halfway between being awestruck and dreaming about having no pesky direct debits spoiling my fun.

Sounds like she has worked out what she will need and put it in a 'bills' account ?

Like others, I pay what I can annually when they give you a discount for doing so (car ins / house & contents ins / TV Licence / Car Tax etc) but most bills come out after pay has gone in each month. That also means I know where I am every month. Not sure what she is gaining by putting all bills money for the year to one side from one month's pay - its not like she's going to get any decnet interest on it at the moment.

Back she won't. But living very frugally for one month means she can ignore her bills the rest of the year. So can see the logic in it.

I pay insurances annually because they charge a premium for monthly payments. Ditto car tax.

I pay utilities monthly because they give a discount for DD payments.

I pay CT monthly (well 10/12 months) because I always have. I guess there's an option to pay annually, but its never occurred to me to do so.

Assuming you have a stable income, I can't really see the point in skinting yourself in January.

Pay both car insurances annually, pay water rates every 6 months. Council tax and tv licence pay monthly.

Once they are paid and out the way I feel better and have more disposable income each month.

How does one months salary cover all those bills though?

Council tax alone is nearly 2 months salary. Nevermind car insurance, utilities etc.

She must have a lot of surplus money!!! So her bills must be 1/12th of her annual salary?!
I suppose if she doesn’t have a mortgage that cuts it down a lot but even then our other bills are at least 1/3 of our income.
There is 5 of us and we 2 cars, Netflix, mobile phones x 4 (cheap £10 contracts) etc but it all adds up.

Well it depends what your salary is and what your bills are. The council tax for our house is about 60% of my monthly salary, but I couldn't pay all bills from one month's salary, as CT and gas/electric add up to more than that, plus there's water, house insurance and whatever else she pays.

Interesting idea though. Have one frugal month a year and then relax a bit the rest of the time. Many people do dry January, veganuary, use up excess out of the freezer, toiletries stocks etc and maybe try not to go out to eat or buy 'stuff' that they don't strictly need, so it's not massively different to what many people do, just that she's framing it in a slightly different way.

Very odd! I accrue for everything monthly, transferring the same amount each month to a bills account and then pay the actual bills as when they arrive: insurances, TV licence, car tax, gym membership etc are annual but utilities, council tax etc monthly. Adjust budget when necessary.

So essentially I also don't think about bills at all throughout the year, as they come in and out of my bills account, and what is left each month is for spending and saving. Not sure what she gains from this though if it works for her, fair enough I suppose!

I pay car & house insurance and tv licence annually because it’s cheaper. I pay utilities quarterly to stop the energy company having access to my bank account.

But council tax? Wow?

It's something I've wanted to do but doesn't make sense for us as we get monthly cashback for our bills DDs.

I deliberately pay my council tax in 12 monthly direct debits on the last day of the month, so they have to wait as long as possible to get my money.

I could pay it up front on 1st April if I wanted to, but would rather the money sits in my bank account not the council's.

Basic cashflow management innit.

Pontiac

You could combine the two if you wanted to. Set up a Santander 123 lite account (or you may have this already) and have all your DDs come out of this account as they fall due.

Pay money into the account to just sit there. There may be a minimum monthly pay in, but to meet this, you just need to set up standing orders to move the necessary money in and out of the account.

You could also set up a standing order or make a manual payment to drip feed the money out of a savings account that pays a little interest. But in any case, just put the bills money for the year in either the current or the savings account and regard your bills as 'paid'.

Just our council tax.

We used to do this ! People were genuinely shocked but I remember it being very “freeing”

Barbara, that's what we have and get around £7pm just for having our bills paid monthly by DD. If we changed it to annually we wouldn't get as much as the cashback is capped.

But rather than her having beans on toast every day for a month, which sounds really miserable, she'd do better freezing food throughout the year to be eaten in January.