What do you "automate" in your life?

What do you automate in your life to improve efficiency and reduce stress?

I have automated bill payments/paycheck deductions and automated shipments for some routine products.

Same as you. That's all there is to automate in terms of bills i think.
I also have some automated lights that turn on at dusk and turn off at dawn.

All my bill's are paid automatically. I don't think I could remember to pay them myself. I keep track of it all in Quicken so I'm on top of what's going on in the account(s). I think that's about it for me.

Yet another great thread, Ms. Mediator! I noticed this is in Suggestions -- was that on purpose? I rarely go to the Suggestions section myself so I hope people won't miss this interesting discussion.

I have some friends who don't want to automate anything because they are concerned about electronic systems and having their banking information on their computers or phones, but I appreciate the convenience of automatic check deposit and bill pay. An added bonus is that if you can put your bills on cashback credit cards, then pay the bill off in full (never paying fees or interest), you'll get a little money back as a bonus. This year I earned enough to get about $500 back (but yeah, think of all the bills I paid, ack!!!)

However, some places (rent and some medical bills in my case) will tack on an extra fee if you pay with a credit card (I've seen as high as $5 to $9.99 per payment,) so I ask before I set up any payments.

And although I do a lot of my non-food shopping online, I'm a bit old-fashioned in that I've never signed up for a subscription restock program -- I do all separate purchases, which I know sometimes means missing out on a subscription discount.

But in the past, I've found that subscription programs (for products) were hard to get out of with the companies making the process as difficult as possible (in my experience at least.) You can't just click a few buttons like you did when you started the service, you have to call someone who will then try to make every excuse possible to get you to stay or tell you that you have to call a different number, or even submit a request for cancellation in writing.

This might just be me though, and I certainly don't want to scare anyone out of getting a regular delivery of something they need.