My ?Morning Ritual: Mint, myFICO, & Excel. What's yours?

[bdhu2001]

I have a morning Ritual of pulling up Mint and while it's spooling I pull up myFICO and an Excel spreadsheet.

I use Mint each morning so that I can view all my account balances and activity at one site.  While the  Mint site is loading, I pull up myFICO to view unread posts, and then I double check my activity against my running Excel spreadsheet. I view due dates and statement cut dates for my accounts on my Excel sheet and then post on line payments for anything that has hit on the cards that I'm keeping at a zero balance.

Starting today, I'm going back to simply PIF by due date until 7/2015. But my morning ritual of Mint, myFICO, & Excel will remain.

What's your morning ritual

[Revelate]

myFICO

I have everything on autopay and recently went and put in the requests to put all but one of my cards to a single payment date which should line up their statement dates roughly to manage the reported balances.  I double-check USAA occasionally instead of using Mint, they get everything except failing on my DCU secured card (though they get my DCU savings/checking and former auto loan just fine beats me) and the Wally card which I intend to get rid of after blitzing through the mortgage process in a month.

[seruby]

I don't have a daily ritual, but a weekly one.    Since I get paid every Wednesday, on Tuesday if I have time (or Wednesday if I can't on Tuesday), I open an Excel spreadsheet I have that has my weekly budget on 1 sheet mapped out until the end of the year, and my credit card repayment on another sheet.  I enter my available credit onto the credit card sheet and indicate which card I want to report a balance that month and it tells me how much to pay each week to get 1% on the card to report, and 0% on the others.  I use available credit since the balance doesn't always update quickly.

Then I enter all the information into a paycheck app on my phone so I can see how much I should have in the bank after I pay everything for that week.  Then Wednesday, I double check the numbers will match and that what my app says I should have in the bank, is really what I'll have.

[bdhu2001]

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@Revelate wrote:

myFICO

I have everything on autopay and recently went and put in the requests to put all but one of my cards to a single payment date which should line up their statement dates roughly to manage the reported balances.  I double-check USAA occasionally instead of using Mint, they get everything except failing on my DCU secured card (though they get my DCU savings/checking and former auto loan just fine beats me) and the Wally card which I intend to get rid of after blitzing through the mortgage process in a month.

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Awesome idea on setting up same due date.

[bdhu2001]

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@seruby wrote:

I don't have a daily ritual, but a weekly one.    Since I get paid every Wednesday, on Tuesday if I have time (or Wednesday if I can't on Tuesday), I open an Excel spreadsheet I have that has my weekly budget on 1 sheet mapped out until the end of the year, and my credit card repayment on another sheet.  I enter my available credit onto the credit card sheet and indicate which card I want to report a balance that month and it tells me how much to pay each week to get 1% on the card to report, and 0% on the others.  I use available credit since the balance doesn't always update quickly.

Then I enter all the information into a paycheck app on my phone so I can see how much I should have in the bank after I pay everything for that week.  Then Wednesday, I double check the numbers will match and that what my app says I should have in the bank, is really what I'll have.

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I previously checked every two weeks, before I retired.  Now I have a couple of AU cards out there and feel better double checking everything ; and burning time without exercising. I am the winner of procrastinating and spinning wheels these days.

[baygirl]

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@Revelate wrote:

myFICO

I have everything on autopay and recently went and put in the requests to put all but one of my cards to a single payment date which should line up their statement dates roughly to manage the reported balances.  I double-check USAA occasionally instead of using Mint, they get everything except failing on my DCU secured card (though they get my DCU savings/checking and former auto loan just fine beats me) and the Wally card which I intend to get rid of after blitzing through the mortgage process in a month.

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Wow...great idea to request a single payment date!  First time over here to Personal Finance; glad I ventured over here. 

[Anonymous]

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@baygirl wrote:

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@Revelate wrote:

myFICO

I have everything on autopay and recently went and put in the requests to put all but one of my cards to a single payment date which should line up their statement dates roughly to manage the reported balances.  I double-check USAA occasionally instead of using Mint, they get everything except failing on my DCU secured card (though they get my DCU savings/checking and former auto loan just fine beats me) and the Wally card which I intend to get rid of after blitzing through the mortgage process in a month.

---

Wow...great idea to request a single payment date!  First time over here to Personal Finance; glad I ventured over here. 

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*first-timer in this section too* Oh so glad I did today...

How have I been playing the credit game, never thinking to do that....lol!
-payment date requests made, can't wait to see what transpires as a result-

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@baygirl wrote:

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@Revelate wrote:

myFICO

I have everything on autopay and recently went and put in the requests to put all but one of my cards to a single payment date which should line up their statement dates roughly to manage the reported balances.  I double-check USAA occasionally instead of using Mint, they get everything except failing on my DCU secured card (though they get my DCU savings/checking and former auto loan just fine beats me) and the Wally card which I intend to get rid of after blitzing through the mortgage process in a month.

---

Wow...great idea to request a single payment date!  First time over here to Personal Finance; glad I ventured over here. 

---

*first-timer in this section too* Oh so glad I did today...

How have I been playing the credit game, never thinking to do that....lol!
-payment date requests made, can't wait to see what transpires as a result-

---

Heh glad it was useful but I can't take credit for the idea; I saw something over on Smorgasboard a few weeks ago about changing due dates and likewise thought it was a great idea to do it with all of my cards that I could.  Before I was having to manage my balances twice a month (1st and 15th worked for me) but once the due dates finish coming through I can just make a pass on the 1st to pretty things up and go on with life (my due dates are all on the 9th) for when I need to get uber clean for an application.

Most times I don't worry about it but I get fustruated with how much time it takes to manage a bunch of revolvers when I need to, and this is nothing but goodness for simplifying that and easier to build a routine around even with the autopay backup.  Less time = more winning in my life.

[seruby]

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@Revelate wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@baygirl wrote:

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@Revelate wrote:

myFICO

I have everything on autopay and recently went and put in the requests to put all but one of my cards to a single payment date which should line up their statement dates roughly to manage the reported balances.  I double-check USAA occasionally instead of using Mint, they get everything except failing on my DCU secured card (though they get my DCU savings/checking and former auto loan just fine beats me) and the Wally card which I intend to get rid of after blitzing through the mortgage process in a month.

---

Wow...great idea to request a single payment date!  First time over here to Personal Finance; glad I ventured over here. 

---

*first-timer in this section too* Oh so glad I did today...

How have I been playing the credit game, never thinking to do that....lol!
-payment date requests made, can't wait to see what transpires as a result-

---

Heh glad it was useful but I can't take credit for the idea; I saw something over on Smorgasboard a few weeks ago about changing due dates and likewise thought it was a great idea to do it with all of my cards that I could.  Before I was having to manage my balances twice a month (1st and 15th worked for me) but once the due dates finish coming through I can just make a pass on the 1st to pretty things up and go on with life (my due dates are all on the 9th) for when I need to get uber clean for an application.

Most times I don't worry about it but I get fustruated with how much time it takes to manage a bunch of revolvers when I need to, and this is nothing but goodness for simplifying that and easier to build a routine around even with the autopay backup.  Less time = more winning in my life.

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When you changed the due dates, did it impact the statement and reporting dates?

I was considering doing this for one of my cards.  I have 2 cards that report about 3 days apart (21st and 24th), and I signed up for another one early in the month in hopes it would have an early reporting date.  But it's reporting date ended up being the 17th, so they're all still close to each other.   I wanted the last card to report on like the 10th, so I was thinking of changing the due date but wasn't sure if that impacted the statement date as well.

[Anonymous]

My morning rituals would be Mint,  Mint Bills, and MyFico, and at the end of the day I do Quicken, and Excel make sure everything is up to date and check out my cutoff dates