Credit Cards

[jamesdwi]

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DVH1980 wrote:

I dont use it either. I prefer to do it manually. I use an excel spreadsheet for all my bills/cc's and sit down the day after payday and pay all my bills. I make payments on my credit cards twice a month just to play it safe.

Even if I did use autopay, Id still feel compelled to log in to make sure it went through and that kind of defeats the convinience factor.

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+100

that is exactly what I do, I try to make more than the minimum payment on each card each payday. 

[CreviceTool]

I have autopay set up to PIF on all (6) of my credit cards, for several reasons.  I like the convenience.  It protects me from my own forgetfulness.  And I like to wait until the due date to pay, so my money is sitting in my interest bearing checking account as long as possible.  But waiting until the last minute can be risky if something prevents you from making a payment (web site goes down, something pops up in life, etc.), so autopay eliminates that risk.  It also prevents me from making a mistake (I process a payment, but accidentally don't click the confirm button, etc.).

I use direct deposit, and all my bills are set to pay automatically.  The only thing I have to manually do is spend what's left over. 

[OilFieldEngineer]

I use auto pay for all my regular monthly bills except my credit cards. I like to control what amounts and most of them I pay in full but on occasions I carry a balance if I made a sizeable purchase. 

[Cleanmachine]

I pay all my credit cards the day after closing.

If you carry a balance on your cards and using auto-pay, you are paying interest on the interest already charged on your balance.

[SoCalBound]

I have set up a spreadsheet listing expenditures and calendar listing all due dates and closing dates.  If I intend to carry a balance I know how long til I pay it off.    Then I pay 1-2 times a month depending on statements and when I use the cards.    I manage about 7-8 cards this way. I prefer this over autopay

[Eschaton]

I am enrolled in auto pay for all of my credit cards and all of my bills, but I don't fully trust it and I pay anyways. It's always good in case, for whatever reason you didn't push it through manually

[Imua]

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webhopper wrote:
I am enrolled in autopay, as a backup. Generally I pay way early so that I don't have to worry about being late.

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Same here.  Autopay set up for minimum amt due.

[DaveSignal]

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Imua wrote:

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webhopper wrote:
I am enrolled in autopay, as a backup. Generally I pay way early so that I don't have to worry about being late.

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Same here.  Autopay set up for minimum amt due.

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+1.  It is always a better idea to be prepared for the worst.  Failing to plan = a plan to fail.

[CruzImperial]

Not yet, mainly because if I use the autopay option, I wouldn't know how much money I have left to play with. I prefer to do it manually and make sure I have X amount of money available for any reason.

Btw, reading the comments, I am now inclined to set the autopay to pay the minimum just in case I forget.

[cashnocredit]

I pif-autopay each card from a single bank account. I treat them as debit cards. I don't normally prepay before a statement cuts since I believe the statement balance fluctuation carries indirect info that I likely pif and estimate of cash flow. This helps FICO's (and others) "capacity index" and "income estimate," useful but rarely discussed scores that are, in some ways, nearly as important as the classic "Risk Scores."

But  I don't always use only autopay. I may pre-pay on many cards the month prior to a credit app. in order to optimize FICO. This is pretty important to do if that month happened to be a particularly high spend level. Don't want to app for credit if your util. is 80% or even 150% in the case of World or Siggy cards which allow that.  OTOH, it's good stuff to show you can handle the spend if you pif and your util is down to 5% or so at the next cycle.