Automatic bill payment. Yay or nay?

Only my phone bill because they gave me an extra discount to do so and I've been w them forever and don't see changing to another company anytime soon.

I utilize auto pay for equity life insurance premiums and my AMEX account but that is all. I manually pay on line for everything else.

I was reluctant for a long time, but do it now. I don't do it for things that will vary a lot (my phone bill varies by less than a dollar each month). Some things keep WANTING me to do autopay but it never works right when I set it up and for me to go the next month and find out I have an overdue balance and late charge. I've been through this several times with my health insurance premium.

My way of adapting is that I have my checking account in Excel, and on a separate tab I have a template for all of my regular monthly payments that I can copy and paste each month. This way I can still go through the motions of the automatic things happening for my own accounting.

I avoid goods/services that work on the monthly payment model, since most rely on people forgetting they're paying for something they never use, but I'm loosening up on that. I just tried Dollar Shave Club, partly because of the most recent shaving thread here. Didn't want to drop $30 for more Mach 3 blades I won't like.

Auto pay for everything but insurances, no issues for many years now. I do an audit of our finances on the 1st of every month. I have every alert setup with real time redundancies. I don't do auto pay on yearly subscriptions. I primarily use a CC linked to my bank. I have autopay setup on it but usually pay the balance off manually (on line) several times a month. I get notifications of upcoming utility bills and track all finances on a spreadsheet. I've been handling the finances for 11 years now and for me there is no down side to using auto pay.

I guess the easiest explanation for me is by the time an autopay hits the bank there are no surprises, I've had plenty of time to review the upcoming ones. 

I do for electric and the phones. I would for water, but it’s the county and their whole system is flakey. I just pay that from the bank.

I autopay almost everything. The bills that vary are autopay through the payee. The ones that are the same I set up an automatic payment through my online banking app. I prefer that as I have all the control.

The stuff that is fairly consistent or has advance warning of changes, I leave on autopay. Credit cards and the like, nope.

I'm in the camp that believes there is sufficient advanced notice on most bills such that auto-pay isn't a significant risk. I got tired of manually paying bills.

I don’t like it. Maybe I want to wait a week or two. Maybe I have extra money and want to pay it earlier. I will pay electronically, but I always initiate it manually.

Me too.  I'm one of those who pays the bill the day it arrives.  The next day at the latest.  1) I don't want to have to take the time to do all of them at once, and 2) I don't want to forget about it.  I usually get an email telling me something is due so I pay it then.  I always get a paper bill in the mail.  Usually at a later date than the email.

Yay.
During the year I have plenty of time to tour the country, along with time to spend with the family during the seasonal holidays. I’m easily away from the farm 2 months a year, not including various weekend camping. Getting the bills paid is one headache I don’t need.

The only bills I pay is the annual property tax on the farm, and vehicle registration, but that is every 4 years or so