Do you think that alot of the bills should be pay as you go

When my nan was growing up in twenties and thirties Australia, her family home was powered by what can best be described as being a prepaid electrity provider. The house was equipped with a power box and metre that my great grandfather would put money - two shillings to be exact - into. This then powered the house for a given period of time. If the power ran out, another two shillings would be required. Frankly, I think that's a system that should be utilised today. As someone who uses a prepaid mobile phone and internet service, I know the benefits of only paying for what I can afford. It keeps me out of debt and allows me to prioritise the aspects of my budget that are the most important and immediate. That is not something that I could do if everything that I had was on credit.

Yes, that does sound like a great idea. But the phone company I use charges a monthly rate for the land line connection phone service I get. I think its used to cover the maintenance and service of the phone company and their phone lines. Although I rarely get to use the phone I have at home and am thinking of switching to a pay as you go cell phone plan.

Over thirty years ago, when I moved to another state, they had stepped down types of phone bills, only landlines then. You could have unlimited calls or a certain amount of calls, like twenty seven (weird number, but it was true) or ten calls per month.Then you could save money by not making any phone calls.

i think it is a good idea of paying the bills immediately as you get it. but sometimes, most of the time, you don't have the money to pay them all, so you will wait for the next payday to come. if i can understand well your discussion and if i am not mistaken, we are talking here of postpaid plans and not prepaid subscription? Neil

I can see how it would work for other phone services. I don't use my credit card very often instead I use the debit option and so no worries at the end of the month. Not sure what other bills pay as you go could work for, it wouldn't for electricity or water around where I live since they estimate it and then check the meters every other month and then adjust the bill, usually upwards!

I think that pay as you go is a good idea! It would keep consumers from getting into too much debt, and it would help the companies also. They would be assured of being paid, instead of people being behind on there bills. There are some bills that you can't do that with, but all in all it would work. If you knew you wouldn't be able to pay for it, it probably wouldn't use it.

I think that would be a great idea for people, businesses and government!

I love my pre-paid phone thru Virgin Mobile! Other things should work that way too! Like I hate how the cable company & the phone company only catch you a deal if you "bundle" well I can't afford to "bundle", "bundling" makes my bill more expensive not cheaper! Especially since I don't need the 3 item bundle, 2 items or one is plenty! I was thinking of thinning my net/landline down a bit more but man then they hit you up for tv & cell service too... UG! Don't cross sell me when I want to save a buck not jack my bill up!

hi jugsjugs oh what a great idea but I have really got a pretty good deal as an elderly person AT andT has given me the lifeline phone deal and I never pay more than 13 dollars a month and most of the time its only seven or eight dollars. course I do not have long distance service but since the few things that are long distance for me all have 800 numbers I really do not need long distance anyway so why pay for it. it is a landline but okay its still a phone and my best friend and my son can call me without me having to hobble down a long corridor to the phone that incomming calls come to the residents here and only one or two people can accept calls at any time so I wanted my own p;hone and a plan I cou ld afford.and I got it.Also I can call my doctor and my health insurance if I need too, and my bank of course.

lucky that i have a prepaid plan on my cellphone. i can use it as long as i have load. in our country there are advantage already of having a pre paid account for you can control how to use it. you can control the out going calls. about landline phones ours has together with the internet service. so as soon as the bills came we pay it all at once. we settle bills as soon as possible.

I agree. Especially when people are first starting out. The landline phones could be just local and then buy a phone card for long distance. So many things have change since the divestiture back in the 80's. That reconditioned all the phones companies and basically let them come into being. Before that AT&T had all the business.

I think no company should offer loans or debts to anybody. In this way people will not get to used the things they wanted by using credit cards and after the end of a term they are left with a mountain of debts to settle yet money is not available to pay all the bills. The ironic thing is that these company is the one that teach these people to become a slave of credit. They say credit card is a big help to anybody but contrary the truth is a bitter pill to swallow. If a survey can be made people will definitely answer that life is much better when credit card has not come in to their life. I agree that everything must be in cash so that people will not be tempted to take credit.

Not a bad idea actually. You pay as you need it. i think it would be a lot easier. I hate having to pay for more than I need of a flat rate for not using power or anything.

I do have my mobile phone as a prepay. I put $50 in and when that runs out, I either put $50 in or wait until I have the money. You can't very well do that with utility bills, your mortgage, etc., but where you can, yeah, it works pretty good.

I agree with "pay as u go". Our country would be in far better financial condition, our individual "pay as u go" would make our country stronger.

I agree, you can't spend money you don't have that way. Sure you may have to wait for somethings, but maybe then you would find you really didn't need all the stuff you thought you did.

I really hate having to pay $60/month f or a landline phone. I actually bought a magic jack about a year ago for $50 plus the $20 yearly fee for the service. I could have saved $720/ year if I had been able to use it, however, my pc was unreliable and liked to crash all the time, so I would have had dropped calls. Now, I am trying to save up and buy a new laptop that has super fast speed and won't crash so I can save. The magic jack doesn't seem to be compatible with mac, unless there is something I don't know.

It would not be a bad idea to do it that way. The way I manage my bills is by taking a set amount out of our pay every fortnight. I added all my bills up for the year and divided it by the amount of pays and I make sure that amount goes to our bill account so there is always money to cover whatever comes in.

I think that would be a great idea for both the consumer and the company. That is a wonderful idea. Many more people would not be in the mess that they are now finding themselves. I also think everyone should only be allowed one credit card. That would prevent alot of debt for people. However, that is another story.

When it really comes down to it, I think that the majority of our utility bills are pay as you go. For example, with all of our utilities (except for our gas bill because I opted early on in our owning our home that it would be best to have our gas on a budget plan) we are billed on a monthly basis for our usage in the prior month. Over the course of a year of living in our house I've been able to figure approximately what each of our monthly bills is going to be and this makes it possible for me to keep track of how our budget is running.