@12njoy wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:WHOA...I almost lost it there. I track my CCs on a spreadsheet with payment due date in the last column (I know, stupid). I paid most of my CC bills already for this month w/exception of Venture, Sapphire and Ritz C which I thought I would take care of this evening. So I mosey on into the Chase site and payoff Sapphire and RC. Then I go get a drink, come back and open up CAP ONE. OMG...the payment is due no later than 11/07 8 p.m. and it's like 7:45. Needless to say, I totally freaked out. I paid off half the balance at 7:53 and then thought, what the hell, and paid off the rest at 7:54. I took screenshots of the transactions which show time and date pre and post payment. But I have a perfectly clean credit record...no lates, no BKs, no nothings. ...and I almost ruined my unblemished record. I need another drink. And I really need to slap myself across the face.
Hello OP. A spreadsheet is a great tool. I use a spreadsheet for my 49 cards. I have the due date on the sheet as well, but I track my accounts by the close date. When a closing date is approaching I check the account to see the activity. I also use a color code system to mark accounts as paid. For example, November payments have the account highlighted green whereas October accounts paid may be blue and December accounts paid might be brown. This way I have 3 checks and balances (close date, due date, and color code). This works very well for me. Before I started the color code system, I didn't miss any payments, I was actually paying two or three times on accounts. Good luck. Now I realize 49 cards may not be for everyone but this is my choice here.
I've got a spreadsheet too, and it lists out a row for each of my 20 something accounts. The column with the intended payment amount I've estimated for this calendar month starts out with an orange highlight on the cell in column Q, and typical statement date in column K. After I have reviewed the statement and booked the autopayment or the payment I have scheduled, and recorded that in Microsoft Money, only then do I change the orange highlight on the intended payment cell to no highlight or green. This way, any lines with an orange highlight in column Q are not yet reviewed, or not finalized yet and I still have some task to do to complete it like a follow on payment. Column N shows whether this card has Autopayment, and then which checking account that payment comes out of.
Once the month of statements are completed, and everyone has a payment lined up, I go through a ritual of copying the Excel tab to a new tab, for each new month, and roll forward the Payments column so that gives me a completely new tab each month, and all the upcoming To Pay amounts are re-highlighted in orange ready for the new cycle of reviews of account statements. There is a section below this with the amount of Interest paid on each account, also noted each month and rolled forward to the new month entries.
I have autopayments of amounts that are my typical payment for most of the accounts. The exceptions are only the newest accounts where I am doing bonus spend so the amount is much larger. Once the account settles down, I set an autopayment of an amount that is likely to cover the outside max of charges that could go through the account, or Full Pay, depending on the account.
And while it is true that a 30-day late only occurs 30 days after the payment due date, there are still late payment fees that sting. THAT is real dollars that can be avoided by paying on time. It is also critical to pay on time if one has BT offers riding; you can lose those BT interest rates by paying late, for even more dollars of pain.
Like others here, I get paid semi-monthly. My rent is due on the first and I have 3 CC that I pay along with my rent. I set up my SL payment for just after the 15th, and have my remaining 2 CC due dates around the same time. I've set up automatic payments through my bank's bill pay option. It's set to pay at least my minimum payment x2 on the 3 cards that I use frequently, and equal to whatever bill I have set on the 2 cards I use less frequent. That way I'm covered should I forget a payment. I'm also covered should I decide to pay more than the double minimum payment. I simply edit the payment for that month.
For those who are timing their credit card payments (is that the statement or the expected due date of the statement payment?) to the timing of your paycheck, this seems like it's cutting it close?
I prefer to have enough extra cash (a form of savings) in my checking accounts so that the timing of my bills and CC payments is not dependent on when my next paycheck is coming in. With the large payments like mortgage or rent, obviously there is some timing consideration, but for regular bills, part of a good financial plan is building up savings of 6 months or more for those items.
With my tracking of autopayments and scheduled payments, if I don't have the money already in my account for bills scheduled to be funded 30 days out, leaving allowance also for monthly utility bills I know are coming, I get really nervous and have to figure out where I need to get that cash from now.
I refuse to do auto payments. Therefore, I asked each bank to change the due date so that all of the cards have the same due date. That makes it so much easier for me since I sit down at the computer and pay the ones that have a balance at the same time. Also, I pay them all about one week before they are due.
Many years ago, I did use auto payments. However, one time we were strapped for money and forgot about the auto payment. The payment went through then bounced because there was not that much cash in our checking account. As soon as we found out, we stopped all auto payments. The thing about auto payments is that you tend to forget about them and that can cause problems.
