Foot to butt in 3...2...1....

Anonymous · ‎11-10-2015

My pocket calendar is now my bible. I'm paying close attention to dates now. And time of day, as well. My dumb @ss ran my card up to the limit AFTER I had made my monthly scheduled payment. The plan was to pay it off BEFORE my statement cut. Somehow, I was off by one day. But wait, there's more. I paid my Comenity backed cards on time. Again the plan was to pay off BEFORE the statement cut. I managed this for all but 2. Their cut off for same day posting is 6pm. I missed the part about it being Eastern time. Uh huh, I'm in the central time zone. The end result is ugly. My utilization reported WAY high. Badabing badasplat, my scores took a dip in the dumb@ss river. And not a skinny dip either. It was more of a chunky dunk. I am kicking my own butt as I type this. At least I know they will bounce back next month. And now ill be paying in the morning before work, and you'll never see me without my lil red calender again. Lesson learned.

Anonymous · ‎11-10-2015

At least you know when you climb out and clean up you'll recover next month.

Tip: I pay 2 days ahead and mark my card (post its work great) until I get the email that my statements are ready.

Anonymous · ‎11-11-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous pocket calendar is now my bible. I'm paying close attention to dates now. And time of day, as well. My dumb @Anonymous ran my card up to the limit AFTER I had made my monthly scheduled payment. The plan was to pay it off BEFORE my statement cut. Somehow, I was off by one day. But wait, there's more. I paid my Comenity backed cards on time. Again the plan was to pay off BEFORE the statement cut. I managed this for all but 2. Their cut off for same day posting is 6pm. I missed the part about it being Eastern time. Uh huh, I'm in the central time zone. The end result is ugly. My utilization reported WAY high. Badabing badasplat, my scores took a dip in the dumb@ss river. And not a skinny dip either. It was more of a chunky dunk. I am kicking my own butt as I type this. At least I know they will bounce back next month. And now ill be paying in the morning before work, and you'll never see me without my lil red calender again. Lesson learned.

Sorry that happened CFC.

i know it is antiquated and I know there was a post about it, but I use a spreadsheet. I don't trust auto pay or bill pay (although I was forced to use bill pay when Macy's upgraded their site a few months back and weren't accepting payments ). We all have systems that work for us, so if your system works, then that's great. Thanks for posting.

Anonymous · ‎11-11-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous pocket calendar is now my bible. I'm paying close attention to dates now. And time of day, as well. My dumb @Anonymous ran my card up to the limit AFTER I had made my monthly scheduled payment. The plan was to pay it off BEFORE my statement cut. Somehow, I was off by one day. But wait, there's more. I paid my Comenity backed cards on time. Again the plan was to pay off BEFORE the statement cut. I managed this for all but 2. Their cut off for same day posting is 6pm. I missed the part about it being Eastern time. Uh huh, I'm in the central time zone. The end result is ugly. My utilization reported WAY high. Badabing badasplat, my scores took a dip in the dumb@ss river. And not a skinny dip either. It was more of a chunky dunk. I am kicking my own butt as I type this. At least I know they will bounce back next month. And now ill be paying in the morning before work, and you'll never see me without my lil red calender again. Lesson learned.

I did the same thing month before last - was gonna make my Barclays payment the day of statement closing, and got home from work at 5:00 pm, logged in and recieved the message "payment must be made before 7:00PM EST (I'm PST) to be credited the same day". Oh well, no big deal. Score dropped a little but rebounded back.

Anonymous · ‎11-11-2015

I just did the opposite and got dinged about 20pts......I paid my discover to $0 - so right now I shows no utility - well until CapOne reports next week.....I want to switch which card reports - but I didn't count days......oh well - I'm sure it'll rebound

Anonymous · ‎11-11-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
I just did the opposite and got dinged about 20pts......I paid my discover to $0 - so right now I shows no utility - well until CapOne reports next week.....I want to switch which card reports - but I didn't count days......oh well - I'm sure it'll rebound

Sorry about that Jlynn.

It will be nice someday when our credit lives can progress without little things like that making our scores yo-yo.

Anonymous · ‎11-11-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I just did the opposite and got dinged about 20pts......I paid my discover to $0 - so right now I shows no utility - well until CapOne reports next week.....I want to switch which card reports - but I didn't count days......oh well - I'm sure it'll rebound

Sorry about that Jlynn.

It will be nice someday when our credit lives can progress without little things like that making our scores yo-yo.

Fortunately I have a couple of months to let it YoYo - I think I really want to let the AMEX report - it has the highest credit line - for now..... But the CapOne will work too - it's a close 2nd. I just wanted to be able to carry over more than $45 to stay under the 10%. And DH is AU on my Discover card - and he wants to let his CapOne card report - so I didn't want the Discover to affect him (other that the payment history). So I thought I'd pay it off and switch cards - I just forgot that nothing would be reporting for like a week - because I paid everything else off last month.

Oh well - Starting in January - I have to have it right - because we'll probably mortgage app sometime in Feb or Mar. By then maybe I'll know what I'm doing! LOL

Anonymous · ‎11-11-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous pocket calendar is now my bible. I'm paying close attention to dates now. And time of day, as well. My dumb @Anonymous ran my card up to the limit AFTER I had made my monthly scheduled payment. The plan was to pay it off BEFORE my statement cut. Somehow, I was off by one day. But wait, there's more. I paid my Comenity backed cards on time. Again the plan was to pay off BEFORE the statement cut. I managed this for all but 2. Their cut off for same day posting is 6pm. I missed the part about it being Eastern time. Uh huh, I'm in the central time zone. The end result is ugly. My utilization reported WAY high. Badabing badasplat, my scores took a dip in the dumb@ss river. And not a skinny dip either. It was more of a chunky dunk. I am kicking my own butt as I type this. At least I know they will bounce back next month. And now ill be paying in the morning before work, and you'll never see me without my lil red calender again. Lesson learned.

I made an Excel spreadsheet for myself that helps me. If I didnt have Excel, I would use the free Open Office product.

Basically, its only purpose is to help me avoid the mistakes I made in the past.

I have a column in bright red that shows the due dates of the payments, and next to that column is another red one that shows when the statement cuts.

Almost gave myself a heart-a -stroke this month with my Cap1 account that I am working hard to impress them with. I ordered something on Amazon Prime that we really needed and I had like 20 minutes left to get it ordered so it would ship out and be received with just two days. I made it, using one of my stored CCs. I didnt want to use my debit card, it would have made the balance lower than I'd like. Congratulated myself for quick ordering. About 90 minutes later, it occurred to me, WHICH account ends in 5604?

After frantic searching, I discovered it was indeed the Cap1 account I did not want a balance to report. I tried to cancel the order on Amazon. No dice, it was too far in progress. I tried to change the payment method, too late. In desperation, I deleted the Cap1 account from Amazon saying to myself I screwed up, but it wont happen again with Amazon with that CC. Even though Amazon said no changes, apparently by deleting the Cap1 CC, it went to the next CC and went thru. So I accidentally squeaked by.

My spreadsheet now has a column for the full account numbers and the website. It is now my one place to check for anything CC related. Its my red calendar.

Point is, find what works for you and find a way to improve and prevent after every mistake.

Now I am going to start making frequent backup copies of my spreadsheet onto a thumb drive, and also figure out how to put it on my home network so I can access it from either of the two computers I use.

.