E-mail Reminders: Never Miss a Due Date
We recently bought new term life insurance policies from Lincoln Financial. Other than upping our coverage, one of the biggest differences on our end is that Lincoln Financial doesn’t allow for automatic credit card payments — rather, we need to send in a check each year. While this is somewhat of an inconvenience, it might actually be a good thing in view of our difficulties with cancelling our John Hancock term life insurance policies. The problem that this presents, however, is that infrequent payments can be difficult to keep track of, and letting our life insurance coverage lapse could be disastrous for the family. So what’s a guy to do?
Aside from writing it on my calendar and hoping that I notice it again before the bill comes due, it struck me that one of the many e-mail reminder services out there might be just what the doctor ordered. Go ahead and run a quick Google search for ‘email reminders‘ and you’ll see that there are a ton of free services out there. Simply pick one, create an account, and set up your reminder. Shortly before that bill comes due, you should receive an e-mail reminding you to pay it. As my three year old says, “easy peasy, lemon squeezy.”
The only problem with ’set it and forget it’ solutions like this is that you, well, tend to forget it. Thus, it’s important that the service you choose is a good one, and won’t be out of business by the time you need your reminder. This where where you guys come in… I’ve never used one of these services before, so I’m not sure who the major players are. Anyone have any experience in this area? Any suggestions?
Oh, and here’s another idea… Get your reminders via RSS.
Published on January 2nd, 2006 - 7 Comments
Filed under: Online
email this article
- bookmark it
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
Related articles...
» One Year Ago This Week (December 31st – January 6th)» From the Archives (December 31st – January 5th)
» Carnivals – Week of 05/01/06
» Carnivals – Week of 01/16/06
» Home Depot Appliance Rebate Screwup
» Get Free SkyMiles from Delta
» Target Date Mutual Funds Getting Cheaper
» Don’t Miss These Tax Breaks, Part 3
Was this article useful? Please sign up to receive our content via e-mail:
7 Responses to “E-mail Reminders: Never Miss a Due Date”
Leave a Reply
Featured Credit Cards
-
Chase FreedomSM Card
3% cash back offers in popular categories like gas, home improvement & department stores. Full 1% cash back on all else. Up to 20% addl. cash back on online shopping through Chase. 0% Intro APR and No Annual Fee. See terms.
-
Blue® from American Express
0% Intro APR on purchases and no annual fee. Earn Membership Rewards(R) points for your everyday purchases. Express approval - get a decision in less than 60 seconds. See terms.
Great deals...
Readers’ choice...
Recent articles...
- Credit Card Offers: PenFed Reward Credit Cards
- Selling Lending Club Loans to Reduce Risk
- Identity Theft on the Rise
- Repay Second Mortgage or Student Loan Debt First?
- Quicken Essentials for Mac - Taking a Step Backwards?
- Banks With Consistently High Interest Rates
- How to Handle Irregular Income
- Roth IRA as an Emergency Fund?
- Your Investments: Seven Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Show AND Tell: How to Raise Financially Responsible Kids
Most talked about...
- Dave Ramsey is Bad at Math
- $8,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Dish Network Customer Service SUCKS
- How to Claim the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Pay Off Mortgage Early? Or Invest?
- $15,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Reduced Credit Limits? Share Your Experience
- Would the "Fair Tax" Gut the Economy?
- $7500 First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Best Online High Interest Savings Accounts (Updated!)
- Tax Stimulus Rebate Payments to Start Early
- Life's Too Short to Drink Cheap Beer
Tax Time! Popular Tax Posts
- 2010 federal income tax brackets
- 2009 federal income tax brackets
- Common income tax deductions
- 12 commonly missed tax deductions
- How to claim the first time homebuyer tax credit
- 10 common income tax credits
- 10 tips for avoiding an IRS income tax audit
- What are FICA-HI and FICA-OASDI taxes?
- What is modified adjusted gross income (AGI)?
- Are unemployment payments taxable?
- TurboTax vs. Tax Cut: which is better?
- 2010 Traditional and Roth IRA contribution limits
Stumble It!
Digg It!
Tip It!
del.ico.us
Facebook

January 2nd, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Add redundency into your reminders, have one sent from three places.
January 5th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I highly suggest not having to deal with reminders from three places. Have your own system, and make it a system that you can rely on. That’s one of the concepts of Getting Things Done by David Allen. It’ll save you time, energy, and stress.
Just curious, do they not send a statement or a bill or anything? You could also schedule payments through your banking system, depending on it’s level of sophistication it may even have email reminders built-in. (we’re money bloggers, I’d guess it should be pretty good:))
January 5th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
I use my Palm as a reminder — maybe you should too.
Oh, you’re a paper guy now.
January 12th, 2006 at 6:05 am
I use yahoo calendar to set up reminders. It can send an email, instant message to your yahoo messenger and also send a text message to your cell phone.
As I use yahoo mail almost everyday, there is very less chance that I miss my appointments. Also, we can lookup the calendar entries directly from the yahoo messenger.
January 8th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
I use Google Calendar for this. You can indicate how many days in advance you would like an e-mail reminder. Can also get them via text message to your cell phone.