How Do You Manage Your CC Accounts?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a lot of you are high tech with it.

I like my trusty old notepad.

[ibmrad7]

Like someone else mentioned before, PRISM is hands down the best app for paying bills ... and for bill reminders.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobilligy.android&hl=en

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prism-bill-pay-formerly-mobilligy/id522138897?mt=8

[taxi818]

I get bill alerts to pay on every account. Directly to my phone every account is paid online. Automatic payment is setup as back up only. If I have brain fart. Which has never happened. So sometimes when I carry small balance. Like yesterday. With zero min due. Cap one still hit my auto pay. That's ok. In ever ever worry if late. My job is to feed the checking account. 

[Luscher]

All of my closing dates are towards the end of the month so I wait until the beginning of the next month and pif

[JediNeo]

I don't have many cards so my routine is pretty simple. I log into each account at least once a week, sometimes once a day. Helps me keep tabs on potential fraudulent purchases. Three days before the statement date I ensure its PIF, then remove card from wallet until statement cuts. 

[Middleswarth]

Holy cow it seems some of you do an awful lot of work to track your credit cards.  

I just use MoneyDance.  I add all my bills to it and it displays them on a nice calendar.  I can see which ones are paid and which ones are due.  I just pay the ones that will be due prior to my next paycheck.  I decide how much based on the amount owed which I can easily see on the left side of the same screen.  Simple and effective (and it only requires a little work up front to set up the schedule).  Prior to MoneyDance I used Quicken for more than 20 years.  

[DFStudent]

Would anyone be willing to share their spreadsheet? I am looking for examples to adapt to make my own spreadsheet. Thanks in advance!

[taxi818]

Thanks to thread. I downloaded prism. It's awesome. Alert pops on its own. Bill due. And how much. Even on mobile. I don't need to do anything. Excellent. Lots of work putting passwords for so many bills. And credit cRds. 

[longtimelurker]

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@flawesome wrote:

I just set everything to auto PIF and manually check once a month or so to make sure no funny charges are being made. I'm lazy and have learned to consistantly live below my means, so I don't worry about it.

If I plan to app for a card, I'll pay off all but one before the autopay kicks in.

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This is what I do.   I don't think it's lazy, but just appropriate where

a) you don't have a need to micromanage your score (because you are not apping) and

b) as you say, living below your means, so PIF every bill is not going to cause an issue.

For all those who are doing much more, what is driving the effort?  Score, budget, both, don't trust auto-pay or something else?

[Man-Of-Steel]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@flawesome wrote:

I just set everything to auto PIF and manually check once a month or so to make sure no funny charges are being made. I'm lazy and have learned to consistantly live below my means, so I don't worry about it.

If I plan to app for a card, I'll pay off all but one before the autopay kicks in.

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This is what I do.   I don't think it's lazy, but just appropriate where

a) you don't have a need to micromanage your score (because you are not apping) and

b) as you say, living below your means, so PIF every bill is not going to cause an issue.

For all those who are doing much more, what is driving the effort?  Score, budget, both, don't trust auto-pay or something else?

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For me, it's mainly a combination of not fully trusting auto pay and not being happy with the options auto pay provides.  Currently, I PIF all of my CC accounts and you would think that auto pay would be ideal.  When I say PIF, I actually mean paying the statement balance in full each month.  Surprisingly the "statement balance"  auto payment option is not available for all of my CC accounts.

I took a fresh look at the auto pay options for Amex, Capital One, and Discover.

Amex:  Auto Pay options: Total New Balance, Min payment, Fixed payment.  I do like the fact that they provide some flexibility for the auto pay date.

Capital One: Auto Pay options: Min payment, Last Statement Balance, Fixed payment. I like the fact that they allow the statement balance option, but the payment date is fixed as the due date.  This is where the trust factor comes in.  I would want to have the date set ahead of the actual due date in case something goes wrong in the system and I need to manually intervene.

Discover: Auto Pay options: Full statement balance (not sure if this is the last statement balance or the current full balance), Min payment, Min payment + fixed amount, Other amount.  From what I can tell, there is no flexibility with the auto pay date. 

I like having full control over my payment options.  Since I check all of my accounts on a regular basis, it really doesn't take long to schedule each payment (maybe 30 seconds or less for each account).  I schedule the payments ahead of the due dates and that gives me time to check the status of the payments before the actual due date.  If something goes wrong with my scheduled payments, I will have time to manually intervene before the actual due date hits.