Recibo Único

When we lived in the UK we used to balance out our spending by paying utility bills and insurance by monthly direct debits. Here in Spain you don't seem to be able to do that. To add to the problem, although the electricity bill comes every two months, the water and gas bills come every three months. So February, May, August and November there are two bills to pay; the rest of the months just the one. Our household insurance is due in November and the car insurance in March. That makes November an expensive month! June is the cheapest because we only have the gas bill which, without the heating on, is buttons.

However, la Caixa bank offers a service to its customers called Recibo Único which does the same thing as the UK monthly direct debit system by allowing you to consolidate your direct debits and pay the same monthly amount to cover them. It actually works out better because you only have one entity to deal with instead of half a dozen or more.

This is the way it works: you decide which bills you want to be included; obviously excluding any which are monthly anyway. The total of all those bills over the last year then determines how much you pay each month i.e. a twelfth of the total. You are given a credit limit which is the maximum that would be covered per month. If the bills exceed that limit then you can top up your Recibo Único account to cover the excess. Of course in months where there are no large bills your account would be in credit to cover bills in following months. All this for the princely sum of 18€ per year. Pretty damn good if you ask me.