For my rent, I authorized my apartment management to take money directly out of my account on the first of the month. This means I no longer have to go to the post office to get a money order to pay the rent. I am a little anxious about this as I don’t like companies having direct access to my checking account, but so far – it has all worked out. A few times, they were even late on taking money out of my account. Since this is their fault, I never got charged a late fee.
As for my other bills, when possible, I use PayPal for payments. PayPal uses a credit card to cover the charges, and this allows me to not have direct access to my checking account. All of my bills that don’t use PayPal, I use the card that PayPal uses to pay those bills. This means that one of my credit cards pays all of my bills.
Then once a month, I log into that credit card site, and I pay the card off entirely. This assures that I do not have interest that accrues for paying my bills. I am able to pay the card off entirely because I budget, and I know how much has to be paid.
I try to not carry cash unless I need to. I don’t see the point in drawing cash out of my checking account when I use my checking to pay my credit card. Carrying a credit card is easier and safer than carrying cash. If I feel that I need to go to a place that doesn’t support credit, or I have to draw on my cash fund, then I will carry cash. However, those are for a select few instances.