Best due date for all credit cards?

[core]

Changing them all to the same date would be bad, for me at least.  I never let statements cut with balances, except for a couple.  Say it's the day before your statement cuts, your balance on your favorite card is $0 like it should be but you need to make a purchase? What do you do?  I just use a different card with a similar bonus.  But if all of your statements cut on the same date you don't have that option.

Also with more and more of these credit card companies offering free FICO scores, I'd rather have my score updates spread out throughout the month.  Similar deal with the 3 bureau monitoring they sell here -- if you are paying for that and all your cards report at the same time you only really get one score per month.

[MoreRewards]

Nixon same here. I also have more than one account so I have to transfer money. My employer still doesn't do direct deposit.
Core I agree I like to control what is reported so different cut dates is a plus of having different due dates.
I've never had a problem with paying everything even with multiple cards. It's not too confusing. There is also a program called Billguard that alerts on payment due dates.

[ojefferyo]

Mine is throughout the whole month, I pay at least one CC bill a week. I just never bothered change the due date of any of them instead I just put the due dates in my phone and set the alert to a few days before and schedule the payment. If I remember I pay them earlier

[Anonymous]

If you keep a cash buffer in the bank, the due date really does not matter. I set most of my cards (the ones that allow it) to pay the statement balance or outstanding balance in full once a month. Payments are due once a month, my cards autopay once a month. All my bills are autopayed by my cards or other sources once a month. The only managing I need to do is move money from checking to savings once a month and move money from savings to my non-retirement investment accounts once every few months. I do manually check that all payments were made once a month (on the first Saturday of the month usually), but so far autopay has not failed me. Just make sure you manually make the first few payments before autopay kicks in. 

If you are living paycheck to paycheck and get more than 1 check a month (twice a month, weekly or bi-weekly), then spreading out payments can make sense. If possible though, you should save a few months worth of money and keep it in a linked savings (or even just checking) account. In times of financial distress this might not always be possible, but living check to check where you need to worry about spreading out CC payments to be able to pay them is dangerous if you do it long-term. 

[barbaralee]

We are one month ahead on our paychecks and we have a buffer, so our due dates fall all over the map. I have everything set up on auto pay and I only check our bank account to see what got paid and then deduct from my register. Getting away from the paycheck to paycheck life has been liberating.

[NRB525]

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@JoshNurse wrote:

I was thinking of switching all of my crdit card due dates to the 1st of the month.

What day do you guys use?  I just want to simplify and automate my finances and payments as much as possible.

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Mine are scattered through the month (I like the comment about free FICO access), so I have more than one checking account:

1) Opened a Chase checking account a few years ago to take advantage of a $150 bonus. I route a fixed DD amount from each paycheck so it is on pace to give me the money in that account that matches my payment plans for cards and several other bills. When the credit card statement comes out, either the card is on an autopayment already out of this Chase account, or I line it up to pay from there a few weeks out. There's a buffer in the account, so rarely have to move funds in, sometimes extra I can use to pay something else.

2) Opened a US Bank account, similar opening bonus. Other minor bills here, a fixed amount from each paycheck to cover those.

3) Oldest checking is Wells Fargo, have a second mortgage, also running a fixed amount from Direct Deposit for twice that each month. (back in the day, my habit was to get the CC statement in the postal mail, write the check from this WF account, put a stamp on it, and send by return mail, weeks before the due date. I never had a late payment )

4) Local Credit Union for what ever balance results. So in this account, some other highly variable items might go, so I can just plan or watch this separately.

All checking and the credit card accounts are setup so I can pay electronically from any of them, but usually it's Chase, by design.

I'm an accountant, what can I say? It makes sense to me

[Anonymous]

The best day would be the day after "The Rapture."  Nobody would be around to take your money, since all bankers would be in heaven...

[Dw4250]

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@barbaralee wrote:

We are one month ahead on our paychecks and we have a buffer, so our due dates fall all over the map. I have everything set up on auto pay and I only check our bank account to see what got paid and then deduct from my register. Getting away from the paycheck to paycheck life has been liberating.

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Amen barbaralee!  Having a buffer in both savings and checking eases so much stress.  I never want to go back to the check to check lifestyle.  

To answer OP's question I think it's really up to you.  If it works better for your budget, you can change all your due dates and make one big payment on your cards at the end of the month. I personally like having things spread out so I can better control my UTL and so I spread out my use of various cards throughout the month.

I use bill pay through my bank to pay for everything.  Bill pay sends me an e-mail reminder 5 business days before each payment is due.  As soon as I get the e-mail, I log on and set up the payment.  I receive another e-mail once the payment has been received by the CCC.  Easy peezy.

I see periodically posts on myfico of people who claim they completely forgot to make a payment.  While I can somewhat empathize, in 2014 banks make things so easy for us to pay them.  In the age of smart phones, bill pay, e-mails, text alerts, iPhone/Outlook calendars, etc, there's really no reason anyone should forget to about a payment.

[Anonymous]

I don't have a specific date. I have most of my cards set up to auto pay the minimum amount due on each card. Then I send an additional amount to pay the balance off on the cards I choose to. I have it this way so that I can take advantage of the introductory fee on some of my cards.

[Chris679]

I have all but two due on the 27th so the statement date is the 1st or 2nd. The other two are due on the 12th so I can let the other ones report zero balance.