Online bill pay doesn’t always work. Last week, I made an attempt to pay for the rental of my cable box online. I had paid online previously and thought that this would be something easy to do. Unfortunately, the cable company would not accept the payment from my account. It wasn’t my account, because other bills that I paid from the same account for larger amounts, the same day were accepted. I tried another time and my attempted payment was rejected as well.

The lesson that I learned from this is even when making payments online attempt to make them early enough so that even if you need to mail in a check or try another day, you still have time and won’t incur late charges. Since I had to send a check, I sent enough to cover several months payments, to make it worth the cost of a stamp. To pay by credit card via telephone I would have to pay a “convenience charge” which was about half the amount of the monthly rental fee.

Online payments are supposed to make your life easier but when making payments for small amounts (under $10) online payments are not always the easiest to make.

Unemployed or underemployed and can’t make payments on your loans? You are not alone.

The American Banking Association recently released a report indicating that a lot of Americans are not paying their bills.

…delinquencies on consumer debt rose to a record 3.23% in the first quarter of 2009, up slightly from the previous quarter.

This number does not include credit card debt.

Similarly, the balances on those late credit card accounts rose to 6.6% of all outstanding bank card debt, marking another record high.

The reports shouldn’t be surprising. If you have no money or are making less than you did, paying bills becomes difficult if not impossible.

Don’t dodge bill collectors or anyone you owe. Be forthright and explain your situation or try to make some small payment if you can.

Prioritize your bills. Pay the essentials such as mortgage or rent, transportation to get to work and utilities.

You aren’t the only one. Ask for a restructuring of your mortgage, if you can. If it is true hardship you can ask to reduce the interest rate on your loan with no additional fees. Some income requirements may be imposed but remember companies also want their money too. Late payments and delinquencies also can mar your credit report but making some effort will be better than doing nothing.

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger, in a cartoon this was cute. For a state in the 21st Century it’s not. California’s budget woes will make the state start handing out IOUs. This is a very dire situation. People who depend on that money can’t give their creditors IOUs. What can they tell their creditors or utilities? We can’t pay you because we’re not getting my money. Even though the money isn’t directly for government salaries the vendors who deal with the state won’t receive payments which are used for salaries and their own business expenses.

Some states are notoriously slow in making payments to vendors but regular workers always had priority. Who will be next if the state won’t be able to pay its creditors? Furlough days for government workers is the pejorative buzzword that has been going around. The small vendors and businesses that aren’t getting money from the state will contribute to the further decline in the money problems.

If an agreement is reached before 4 p.m. CST then the IOU would just be nothing more than a bad dream. Otherwise, those who deal with the state of California as a customer may have to face some budget woes of their own.

The state’s long-term bond rating is in jeopardy, as well. It already has the worst credit rating in the nation.

Fitch Ratings last week downgraded the state’s long-term general obligation bonds to A-, from A, and placed them on a negative ratings watch, signaling the company’s concern about California’s ability to solve its liquidity crisis.

Just like individuals, those with the worst credit ratings have to pay more to borrow money which will cost the taxpayers more in the long run.

Poor Ruth Madoff.

Bernie Madoff’s wife is now crying broke because she has been stripped of all but $2.5 million in assets. In New York her duplex apartment was worth $7 million.

The fascination with money and its excesses are intriguing. Last week, I read an article about the lack of skilled trade workerswho are needed and the positions pay $22 an hour which would be over $45k a year. Additionally there were other engineering positions that employers were having difficulty filling which paid $50k+ a year. In the East, people were crying that you can’t afford anything on that wage. While in other parts of the country $45-50k annually might not get you into a fancy country club but you wouldn’t be broke either.

How far money will go depends on your location in the country. Real estate prices in larger coastal cities may be higher than in the middle of the country, though decent homes in good neighborhoods can still be had for people making $50k a year.

Mrs. Madoff who was allegedly not a part of her husband’s business dealings still gets to keep five times more than the maximum payment that claimants may receive toward their investment losses.

In most parts of the world, $2.5 million dollars does not make you poor. In a relative sense when you had more and lost the majority of your holdings, then a paltry $2.5 might seem like a poverty level when compared to $65 million or more. Yet, for people who lost their live savings to leave with $2.5 seems like a dream.

Ruth Madoff’s salon and florist (among others) no longer want her business, so she may not have to worry about her $2.5 going very fast. Some buildings don’t even want her to live there, so her millions may go a lot farther than originally thought. If people can survive on $50k a year, R.M. should be able to do it as well.

If you are delinquent on your credit card bill, it may not be Monty Hall calling to make a deal, it may be your credit card company.

The delinquency rate on credit cards has risen, as have calls from credit card companies to people with high balances. Companies are trying to make deals with people in order to get something rather than nothing.

Even with settling for less than the entire amount, there are still high balances around.

“Revolving credit, a close approximation of credit card debt, totaled $939.6 billion in March. The Federal Reserve reported that 6.5 percent of credit card debt was at least 30 days past due in the first quarter, the highest percentage since it began tracking the number in 1991. The amount being written off was also at peak levels.”

Credit brings a different dimension to this recession.  The unemployed and under-employed do not have as much to lose. When you aren’t making any money, your wages can’t be garnisheered. This does not mean forgoing payment. Although no one can say, yet, how taking a deal from a credit card company will affect your future credit or credit score.