Now You can pay your bills at Wal-Mart for just 88 cents.

Wal-Mart customers pay just 88 cents for standard bill payment, or $1.88 for next-day bill payment. Same-day bill payment through MoneyGram starts at $4.50, according to Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart, which has been increasingly targeting the low-income demographic with financial services, says shoppers can pay for utility, credit card bills, cable, satellite, landline phone, auto and wireless phone bills at Walmart MoneyCenters and customer service desks. Wal-Mart will allow customers without checking accounts to pay all their bills at Walmart stores, potentially saving them hundreds in fees each year. Wal-Mart says its bill-paying fees are significantly lower — typically half as expensive as those charged by third-party stores. For example, it charges $3 for cashing checks, and 60 cents for a money order.

Who Pays Their Bills at Wal-Mart?

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer says its research reveals that the new service will cut the time customers typically spend tending to such bills in half, and collectively, save American families as much as $100 million in bill-pay fees this year. Because of the recession, the number of “unbanked” consumers is growing, and Wal-Mart says it believes more than 21 million households pay at least one bill in person every month. Other studies have estimated that more than 22 million Americans have no checking account.

But if you don’t have a checking account, it’s costing you money. Some research estimates show the average person without a bank account spends about 5% of income at check cashers each year, ranging from $800 to $1,200 per year.

Another alternative is a pre-paid Visa or MasterCard credit card like those from AccountNow. One of the main benefits of an AccountNow Visa or MasterCard is the ability to establish a credit history.

Wal-Mart’s study finds that paying bills in person “remains mainstream among a large segment of Americans who make less than $45,000,” and that often such shoppers use third-party walk-in bill payers, which allow them to pay with cash, get a printed receipt, and of course, hang on to their money longer than if they paid by check.