Perhaps I'm old-fashioned but other than a) the mortgage payments on our BTL property and, b) the council tax on our own house - I have no DD payments preferring to pay as and when, partly to not to fall victim to erroneous payments and partly as I like to hold on to my money!
Dr Biggles shared this philosophy. Not so much out of mistrust of direct debits, but out of a curmudgeonly sense of getting one over on $utilityco if he waited until he got a red letter before sending a cheque.
This made things unnecessarily difficult for Mrs Barakta's-Mum when he died, as there was no way to pay the (by now overdue, because he'd been ill for a few weeks) bills without extensive deathmin. The don't-tell-the-bank-until-last approach wouldn't help.
In my limited experience, the direct debit guarantee works. Of course, it does require that you pay attention to what you're being charged, and that you've got enough of a buffer that knock-on effects of likely overcharging won't break something important.
