Managing juggling credit cards - practical tips?

watersign76

Hi

Husband & I started using interest free credit cards last year to help with budgeting and also to split "spending money" outlay, rather than one of us buy something and then ask the other for money etc.

However we now have a Sainsbury's card that is not interest free but does gain us nectar points so we are using it for food shopping that we pay that off each month. And we now have an interest free Barclaycard for purchases we want to pay off over a few months.

But we are getting in a pickle with each bill, they have different payment dates and we don't seem to have developed a good enough system for tracking what is left on the interest free card.

As you can probably guess we aren't typical MSE's! But I do wonder what those that are do to manage this sort of thing? Is it just down to being disciplined and using Excel each month?

Cheers
Watersign76

ElkyElky

watersign76 wrote: »

Hi

Husband & I started using interest free credit cards last year to help with budgeting and also to split "spending money" outlay, rather than one of us buy something and then ask the other for money etc.

However we now have a Sainsbury's card that is not interest free but does gain us nectar points so we are using it for food shopping that we pay that off each month. And we now have an interest free Barclaycard for purchases we want to pay off over a few months.

But we are getting in a pickle with each bill, they have different payment dates and we don't seem to have developed a good enough system for tracking what is left on the interest free card.

As you can probably guess we aren't typical MSE's! But I do wonder what those that are do to manage this sort of thing? Is it just down to being disciplined and using Excel each month?

Cheers
Watersign76

The best thing you can do is set up a direct debit for each of your cards so the lenders can take their payment directly from your bank account without you having to worry about payment dates and such although you would have to make sure the money is readily available in your bank account.

If you don't want to do that, you can always call up your card companies and have the payment date changed to whatever you choose, so they are all on the same day.

Bare in mind, if you're not using the direct debit feature then responsibility to ensure payment is received on time lies with you. There is no risk of you being late or forgetting a payment where a direct debit is set up.

Using Excel each month may not be practical as payment dates often change due to it falling on a weekend or bank holiday.

I tend to pay my credit cards the moment the bill arrives through my door as apposed to following the due date on the statement. I then mark on the statement envelope as paid and file it away, that helps me manage 7 credit cards.

CLAPTON

bad idea to start to spending more than your income even if you only plan to do this for a few months; well intentioned plans have a habit of going astray.

better to start to build up some savings to make the peaks and troughs of spending easy to handle

JasX

First thing to do is call up the card companies and have your payment dates moved to a similar / regular time of the month... a good point to aiim for is 7 days or so after your monthly pay comes in.

Then setup DDs to pay the minimum offf each month (ideally the full balance tho).

Has worked pretty robustly for me, in the past... -money comes in at the end of the month, all major bills go out around 5th - 7th then whatever is left in my account is the maximum I have to spend for the rest of the month

leaving 7 days inbetween allows any bank holidays etc to be taken care of or time to sort something else out if ever anyting goes amiss.