Unlike in Switzerland where most people pay their bills on-line these days, here in Chiang Mai we still pay most of the bills the ‘old fashion’ way. You go to the bank or office and pay cash. To make things more complicated we can’t pay our house rent at lets say Kasikonthai Bank because the owner has her bank account at Bangkok Bank. That means we have to pay at Bangkok Bank. For the office rent, we have to go to another bank. (get the idea?) The water bill gets delivered to the house and if we are home, we can pay directly to the government employee on the motorbike and save ourselves a long drive to the ‘water office’ on the other side of town. Electrical bills can get paid at 7/11 or at the Electrical Company near the Nong Hoi Market. School bills aren’t something we pay monthly but again, we have to pay cash…Many people have their secretaries or their maid pay the bills. Which brings me to another topic.. maids. It really helps to have one especially when you are new in town !! More in another post.. maybe. Paying bills isn’t a straight forward thing here in Chiang Mai, but you learn and get used to it. I do envy people who can do it all on-line like theddy
ps.. transplantingme You will definately want your husband to pay the bills haha 
this is the kind of information i’m looking for. the books on thai culture are great, but it’s the day to day i’m curious about. thanks for this post. and what if he’s not in town to pay the bills?
Hi Lillian
Having caught my attention with your verbaling about paying bills I was interested to appreciate how “theddy” does it.
I get this link and of course that behind a password. http://www.mythailanddiary.com/wp-admin/
Hope this is a bug and not some privacy control you are introducing
Ally
ps get an online account for all banks you deal with & its a heck of a lot easier
Then you can get your maid to do it, your husbands secretary or do it yourself… (or ofcourse forget till your husband is back and act surprised when there is no electricty in your house haha )
Good to know, because in Europe can pay everything online. Coming to thailand in December for 6 months.
Hermanni
http://thairadio.myradiotoolbar.com
Even I can pay my bills online, I don’t like it at all!
It still takes a lot of time, and there is always less money on the account as I expected
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I would give a terrible accountant
But I won’t complain too much, not only we pay the bills online, but we can vote by letter and we can do tax return online, shop online get your favorite cds and books online, even video on demand is getting better and better… you can stay at home an live your life right before your computer
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Correction needed. It is possible to do some online payments as Ally mentioned !You need to find out which banks you can do it with.
In Bangkok, I’ve managed to set-up all my bill payments online via Kasikorn Bangkok. They have a pretty decent interface setup. Well, all except for TOT (the phone company). Go figure the communications company would be the one bill I CANNOT seem to pay online.
I went to one of our banks about online banking. I asked if it is secure. The manager looked at me and said not really.
The old fashioned way with the bank book and deposit slips seems to be the more favored approach. At least I get the feel of being rich once a month holding all that money in my hand.