I’m a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to paying my bills. I’ve always preferred using my checkbook to paying bills online or relying solely on my online banking, but I naturally recognize the importance of these tools and have moved over to using them, begrudgingly. But I’m extremely cautious about who I give my info to and have a healthy suspicion of third-party bill paying services or apps. Usually I just dismiss these ideas and go about my normal business writing checks and mailing them through – GASP! – snail mail, because I don’t think that using my phone is necessarily more convenient if it gives me one more thing I have to learn and verify over the tried and true. But there IS one thing that will make me stop and give a service another look: Coupons!
You know I’ve always joked about how I wish I could use coupons towards my power bills, so when I heard that Evolve Money, a bill paying app, was offering promo codes for money off your bills, I thought: “Fine. You’ve got me! I’ll learn more!” 😉 Evolve Money is a third-party service that allows you to pay bills on their website or via their app, which is available for iOS and Android devices. You can choose your bill provider from one of 11,000+ on their list, and make a payment using your debit or prepaid debit gift cards, or “Evolve Pay Bucks”/ReLoadit Packs available in stores. Using an app like this as a liaison in paying my bills is very different for me, so I think the name is appropriate, since it symbolizes me “Evolving” in my approach to bill paying!
So what’s the benefit to using this over your bill provider’s site? I didn’t think there would be any, other than the fact that Evolve Money offers coupon codes that you can use for free money off your bills (!). But I also learned that you can use Evolve Money to avoid fees for one-time debit payments that many bill companies charge – I haven’t tested this myself yet, but that would certainly be a great feature – plus the convenience of having one login for all your bills, if that is something that appeals to you. I also love that you can use prepaid debit gift cards for paying bills, since I know those can be fussy sometimes! Payments are delivered in 2 days for free, or you can toss in $1.50 to get it there the same day, even if it’s a weekend or holiday. Evolve Money is backed by PreCash, who you can learn more about here.
When I signed up for Evolve Money, the thing I liked best was that it didn’t require a huge amount of personal information, so I felt more comfortable using it. For my first test, I did a search for my gas company, NW Natural, and was pleasantly surprised to see them pop up right away. Adding my NW Natural account number was easy, and then I was able to proceed to payment. Since I had Evolve Pay Bucks to redeem for this review, I simply entered the code and the full amount of my voucher, along with how much my bill was. You can use your credit for more than one bill provider – just enter in the amount you want to pay for each one, and it will deduct it from the credit amount in your account.
It was fast, easy, gave me an ETA for delivery and reference numbers confirming the transaction, along with a confirmation email. Other than the javascript freezing at one point, there’s nothing i can really complain about. I have to say, this was a lot cooler than I thought it would be, and you better believe I’m going to follow Evolve Money on their social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ in order to watch for more coupon codes! 😉 And speaking of which, I have a great one for you:
Promo Code – Free $5 Off Your Bills For New Customers
If you’re new to Evolve Money, you can receive $5 off ANY bill – yes, even your power bill! – by signing up with promo code: contestcorner5 This code is valid now through May 9th, 2014 – to redeem, simply input the code in the “Discount & Promo Code” box when you get to the “Add Payment Method” section. You can access it online from your computer or smartphone at www.EvolveMoney.com, or via the free app available from Google Play and iTunes.
Like you, I hate to have too much personal information tied to my phone. Though I do see that this could have some benefits as well.
Hubby handles all our bills. I’ll have to show him this.
I love anything that can help me save money and like my life easier!
I had never heard of this app before! I checked out more reviews on google play and it looks like a lot of people like it. Definitely will be checking to see if it would be something I could use.
I do all my payments online too!
Sounds like an interesting app to check out. I would love to not need a checkbook anymore and pay everything digitally.
I hadn’t heard of this app but I like the concept. I am awful at mailing things so paying with my phone or online is the thing for me!
I haven’t heard of Evolve, but I like to do all of my banking digitally so I should check this out. Like you, I am game to try it for the $5 promo 🙂