Going Paperless

This month's "green" topic: Going Paperless.

There are several ways to "go" paperless. Online bill pay, paperless statements from banks & credit card companies, and receiving your monthly bills via email are just a few.

Online bill pay can be done through your bank or through the individual vendors. Using your bank's website offers "one-stop" convenience -- you can pay all your bills in one log-in. This also offers the benefit of seeing your actual account balance so you don't overdraw your account. Utilizing electronic payment methods saves you money for stamps and checks.

Paperless statements arrive in your email Inbox or you can download them from your bank's or credit card's website. Many times you can save them as PDF documents in case you need to refer to them in the future. One of the banks I use actually paid me $10.00 to switch to paperless statements!

Receiving your monthly bills (electric, telephone, cable, etc.) via email rather than postal mail eliminates the paper for the bill, the insert(s), the return envelope & the mailing envelope. Over the course of one year, that could be almost an entire ream of paper!

Another benefit of going paperless…less room required for storing documents :)