'CC Auto Pilot': Automated transactions to manufacture credit history

[pdxmike]

I have no credit history, and I want to get a mortgage in a couple years. I'll need to get credit cards, but I'm terrible at keeping track of things, and I could easily miss a payment. So how can I set my cards on "CC Auto Pilot?"

I need to manufacture both charges and payments. I want to lock my cards in a vault and just have small automated transactions on them every month. I want to just "set it and forget it."

Balance payments are probably the easiest to automate, don't all major cards have an auto-pay option? Is it 110% reliable every single month if I set the cards to PIF in the grace period and not accrue intrest? Or would it be more dependable to have my bank send money to my card each month on a set date, rather than rely on my card to draw the money from my bank? Is it even possible to have my bank send unrequested money automatically like that?

I'm not sure how to automate charges, though. I don't want these cards on automatic bill pay, because my bills vary every month and I would have to keep track of them, and set aside a large amount from which the cards can draw their balances. I'd rather have a small fixed payment like a gift card purchase or a payment to my parents each month via PayPal/Amazon Payments/Google Wallet or just an EFT from my bank. Is that possible?

Am I missing anything with my CC Auto Pilot scheme? Does it sound like a good idea? Has someone already thought of it before?

[creditconcept]

Make your monthly Netflix/Blockbuster payment recurring on your credit card: $9

Set your credit card to autopay the minimum payment. Which will always be $9

Keep $10 in your checking account every month

Repeat.

[Anonymous]

+!

[pdxmike]

Oh, I just found this: Google Wallet added recurring transfers last month, where you can have it automatically withdraw money from a bank account into your Google Wallet balance. Does this sound like something that could generate automatic spending from a credit card, or might it not allow transactions from a credit card? Does anyone happen to have Google Wallet or is interested enough to find out? I'm not getting my first card till January.

Edit: I just got off the phone with Google Wallet, and they only take recurring payments from bank accounts. But now I'm intrigued if I can find something else out there...

[NRB525]

If you have a cellphone, that bill can go to one card. A gym membership monthly fee can be paid with a CC autopay. My auto/home insurance is on a monthly autopay to spread those premiums over a year, the insurance company sends the bill to a CC. A telephone landline (what's that?) and/or cable bill can be paid via CC monthly. That covers the CC Charges.

To pay the CC, all modern (popular) CCC have autopayment that you can set up, and you can choose minimum payment, or PIF / pay all new charges based on statement balance. Many (except Chase for some reason) also allow you to set a dollar amount for the payment, and if the total balance is less than that, only that balance gets paid. The credit card should be set up to initiate the payment. This works most of the time. I have had recurring issues with US Bank, however. Among all my cards, US Bank is the only one that either can't record my mouse clicks, or loses my payment request, so I have to watch them closely as the due date approaches to see the payment gets made. Mostly it works, but just enough not to make me paranoid. All others, Chase, Citi, BofA, AMEX, Discover, Cap One, once you set through the Autopay screens, you are golden. Not US Bank.

And you do not want to initiate the CC payment from your checking account. It is much simpler, and the CC has a record, if you initiate the autopayment / electronic payment from the CC side.

Now you have your estimate of payments each month, and you can set up a checking account specific for those payments, and take your direct deposit and allocate the necessary amount (plus a buffer) to this cash account. You want a bit more going in there, and you want to leave this checking account always positive, and then it serves as a savings account as well.

Set those three phases up, and you will be able to relax about always making your payments on time. Except for US Bank credit cards.

[pdxmike]

Thanks for the insight into automated balance payments, NRB! I will avoid US Bank, I guess. For automated charges, I don't have enough auto-pay bills, since I rent and pay utilities to the landlord. So I'm hoping to find something like a prepaid gift card that I can automatically reload, or a virtual wallet that can make automatic payments, or a bank account that can regularly charge my credit card.

[pdxmike]

I found that if I create a PayPal Premiere or Business account, I can create a subscription button, then use a credit card to subscribe to my own button. I'm not sure if PayPal or my CCC would frown upon this, though, and I would have to pay CC merchant fees.

Edit: You can even create different billing cycles, so if you want to go the "card of the month club" route where you only carry a balance on one card each month to maximize your FICO score, you can do that. For three cards, you would set up a three-month billing cycle and start your subscription on a different month with each card. You could also do four months, seven months, weekly, whatever. Here are the technical details. Search the page (Ctrl-F) for "quarterly billing cycle."

[MarineVietVet]

I can't remember the last time I wrote a check and all my transactions are done online and I've never had a problem but I would not trust any system to be 100% reliable.

I alway verify every payment was sent and received on time.

Blame it on my OCD but IMO it's too important not to "trust but verify".

[pdxmike]

I found another option: Amazon Subscribe & Save. Free shipping and 5-20% discounts on tons of items with no minimum purchase, and you can set payments to recur every 1 to 6 months. You can choose stuff you normally buy, or you can pick random items in the $1-1.99 range, like gum, tea, Glade plugins, barbecue sauce, Indian spices and Tums. Just find the "All" category links on the left, like "All Grocery," then sort by price. Some ultra-low price items aren't actually as low as they look when you find the Subscribe & Save price. Also, the prices can change. You get an email each month before the product ships, so you have the opportunity to skip a month or otherwise change your order.

I'll stick with PayPal subscriptions for now, but this would probably work for others.

Edit: This would actually be a great way to automate store card activity: get an Amazon store card and set up a quarterly charge for gum. ("Too few retail accounts" is a real FICO reason code (PDF), so maybe a store card gives you a bit of a score bump. Maybe not enough to make it worth it, though.)

[pdxmike]

You can get no-fee Amazon gift cards for 50 cents. You can buy them manually, or you could set up your browser to go through the purchasing process automatically every X months using Selenium.