posted
I started paying for (almost) everything with a credit card, including most of my bills. It's great to only have one statement to keep track of, and I don't have to worry about overdrawing my account. Plus I get rewards points on my card, so I get points for paying bills I would have paid anyway.
-------------------- "There is no constitutional right to sleep with endangered reptiles." -- Carl Hiaasen Won't somebody please think of the adults! Posts: 8254 | From: Florida | Registered: Oct 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Doug4.7: Pay everything with credit card. I get one bill a month and I pay it off in total. No problem with lots of little checks running around.
I'm doing well enough that I haven't had a risk of overdraft lately, but I just started doing the everything-with-credit-card routine a few months ago and it's absolutely fantastic. It seems like every time I sit down to check out my finances, it only takes a fraction of the time that I used to need.
I would just caution about going overboard. Your bank account may run out of money, but the card doesn't (or if it does, you are in BIG trouble).
-------------------- And now for something completely different... Posts: 4164 | From: Alabama | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Doug4.7: I would just caution about going overboard. Your bank account may run out of money, but the card doesn't (or if it does, you are in BIG trouble).
Do credit cards not have limits over there? That does seem a bit dangerous...
quote:Originally posted by Doug4.7: I would just caution about going overboard. Your bank account may run out of money, but the card doesn't (or if it does, you are in BIG trouble).
Do credit cards not have limits over there? That does seem a bit dangerous...
Yes. However, the credit limit is usually much higher than most people keep in their checking account. It would be very easy to overcharge and find yourself in a bind. You do not have to necessarily pay the balance (if it is higher than your checking balance), however, you are now paying interest on the accrued balance until it is paid off.
This is one of the largest sources of consumer debt in America. It is also what has kept the economy afloat for many years.
James Powell
Posts: 588 | From: Michigan | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Doug4.7: I would just caution about going overboard. Your bank account may run out of money, but the card doesn't (or if it does, you are in BIG trouble).
Do credit cards not have limits over there? That does seem a bit dangerous...
They do, but (for example) mine are so high that I could "pay off" my house with the cash advances on my cards. Of course, at 18-22% interest, that would not be smart.
-------------------- And now for something completely different... Posts: 4164 | From: Alabama | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Even though I charge almost everything to my credit card, I don't spend any more money than I used to. Instead of trying to keep track of checks, withdrawals, and debit transactions, everything goes on one monthly statement. Charging everything is not an excuse for people to go out and spend money they don't have - used wisely, it can be a way to make sure you don't overdraw your checking account. As long as you have enough to pay the credit card statement in full every month (as well as a bit of back-up "emergency" funds) it can be quite convenient.
-------------------- "There is no constitutional right to sleep with endangered reptiles." -- Carl Hiaasen Won't somebody please think of the adults! Posts: 8254 | From: Florida | Registered: Oct 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Keeper of the Mad Bunnies: Yes. However, the credit limit is usually much higher than most people keep in their checking account. It would be very easy to overcharge and find yourself in a bind. You do not have to necessarily pay the balance (if it is higher than your checking balance), however, you are now paying interest on the accrued balance until it is paid off.
This is one of the largest sources of consumer debt in America. It is also what has kept the economy afloat for many years.
James Powell
quote:Originally posted by Doug4.7: They do, but (for example) mine are so high that I could "pay off" my house with the cash advances on my cards. Of course, at 18-22% interest, that would not be smart.
Yeah, it's pretty much the same here but the limits are far lower. For instance my current credit card limit is about a 50th of the value of my house. Of course, I could get this upped by just asking and could get more on multiple cards and strangely, the more cards I have the more likely I am to be able to get more cards at higher limits as my credit rating would, ironically, go up.
posted
The solution we've moved to after taking a personal financial managment class:
-Write as few checks and use as few debits as possible. This is primarily accomplished by cashing a significant portion of Mooommmmeee's paychecks and using that to pay for gasoline, groceries, Wal-mart runs, and anything and everything else purchased at the retail level.
-Cash the small, personal checks that come in for this and that rather than depositing them and use for above purchases.
-Wait until Monday after a Friday deposit before mailing in any remaining bills. Forget about automatic payments, EFT's, etc. We can at least control the timing of when the check leaves that way.
-Keep a decent cushion in the checking account. We're not likely to overdraft, even accidentally with an extra $500-$1000 sitting in the account.
-Overdraft protection from savings. It's like $1 per instance.
-If all else where to fail, we'd just use one credit card to pay most things and then pay it off at the point in the month where overdrafting would be impossible by any stretch of the imagination.
All in all, no big deal. Some banks play a crappy came, but I've yet to find one that can't be beat with a reasonable approach.
-------------------- "If I didn't see it and didn't know it was a real news report, I wouldn't believe it. I mean, how nutty can you get?"-Pat Robertson Oct 26, 2006. Posts: 2936 | From: Mean Streets of West Virginia | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
But can you make a mortgage payment using a credit card? I tried to once and they only took check payments because paying with a credit card is "paying off credit with credit".
-------------------- And always remember....when life hands you Lemons, ask for tequila and salt and call me over !!!!! Posts: 521 | From: St. Louis, MO | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
Rhiandmoi
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
It depends on your mortgage company. I can't, but some friends of mine can. That is how they get the majority of their points.
-------------------- I think that hyperbole is the single greatest factor contributing to the decline of society. - My friend Pat.
posted
I wish i could. my check cashing card(works liek a credit) has 1/4% cash back. That's about 20.00/yr
-------------------- And always remember....when life hands you Lemons, ask for tequila and salt and call me over !!!!! Posts: 521 | From: St. Louis, MO | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
At our bank, the deposits are almost always immediately available. I won't ever put deposits in the ATM or night drop because they can possibly (especially in the ATM) take up to a week to go through.
At the bank I used to work at, and I think at my current bank, they didn't process overdraft/NSF/whatever fees until the end of the day, like around 4 PM. This meant that if my account was so low that something going through could overdraw it or had already, I could go during the day and put money in. I never realized that they did it any differently. The bank I used to work for may do this differently now, because just before I quit they were purchased by another bank. The philosophy changed from giving generally good customer service to screwing the customer with as many fees as they could think of to charge. That was a large part of why I quit.
Posts: 384 | From: Iowa | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Heh.This is the reason we're struggling to finish Christmas shopping now...our account was overdrawn last week so when our paychecks were deposited we were "shorted" by the amount it took to get us back up to zero.
Although our bank is good about crediting deposits quickly, it has a tendency to "hold" withdrawals...ie, even though the transaction happened during normal banking hours it's not posted for several days (or in a couple cases, a week or more). Plus DH and I have bad habits of not telling each other about the little transactions for fast food and gas and such, partly because of working different shifts and only seeing each other a couple hours a day (and one of us is usually half-asleep during that time).
So, for example, when I look on the online banking on Wednesday and it says we have $50 and no transactions pending, I think it's safe to get $25 in gas and $5 in McDonald's, not realizing that DH got $30 in gas Monday night and it hasn't been posted yet. The debit card goes through with no problem but then Friday the bank posts both transactions and boom we're overdrawn by $10. We get a $34 fee for each NSF transactions, so we're now at -$78.
We're going to have to go back to checkbook accounting and not relying on online banking and misplaced receipts to keep track of our money, because it's definitely not working.
Posts: 628 | From: Michigan | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by tommi: Heh.This is the reason we're struggling to finish Christmas shopping now...our account was overdrawn last week so when our paychecks were deposited we were "shorted" by the amount it took to get us back up to zero.
Although our bank is good about crediting deposits quickly, it has a tendency to "hold" withdrawals...ie, even though the transaction happened during normal banking hours it's not posted for several days (or in a couple cases, a week or more). Plus DH and I have bad habits of not telling each other about the little transactions for fast food and gas and such, partly because of working different shifts and only seeing each other a couple hours a day (and one of us is usually half-asleep during that time).
So, for example, when I look on the online banking on Wednesday and it says we have $50 and no transactions pending, I think it's safe to get $25 in gas and $5 in McDonald's, not realizing that DH got $30 in gas Monday night and it hasn't been posted yet. The debit card goes through with no problem but then Friday the bank posts both transactions and boom we're overdrawn by $10. We get a $34 fee for each NSF transactions, so we're now at -$78.
We're going to have to go back to checkbook accounting and not relying on online banking and misplaced receipts to keep track of our money, because it's definitely not working.
DH and I also learned that lesson the hard way, tommi. At first I quit keeping records in the checkbook ledger thinking I could always see my debits online in the pending transactions area. Unbeknownst to me, however, those transactions would disappear the next day while the bank "waited on original back up" from the company, then it would clear a few days later at midnight with the other transactions without showing back up in the pending transactions again. After we lost over $100 in overdraft fees, I cut up DH's debit card and got the ledger back out!
-------------------- "Is there anything fluffier than a cloud? If there is, I don't want to know about it." Posts: 66 | From: Cowtown TX | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
