What is your monthly credit card bill?

[Anonymous]

A lot of people who use debit cards set up an automatic notification notifying them when their account is below a certain amount. They use this as a way to manage their account and never catch all the fees the bank charges. You really have to go through your checking account every month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who charge monthly expenses and pay off every month, how do you ensure that you have enough to pay it off every month?
Do you not carry your debit card and pay cash only?

Do you pay the bill all at once, or do you make several payments to your credit during the month?

I worry that psychologically, I would see the high checking balance, and think that we have more to spend than we do.

You check your on-line credit card account instead of your checking balance. The credit card accounts give you far more detailed analysis of what you are spending on. I personally find that using debit cards and cash make me spend more (I know that for most people it is the other way around). When I pay by cash, I spend what it is my pocket and I don't pay attention to what I'm spending as much. When I do everything by CC, I find that I check the account on-line at least once/week to see what our overall spending is. I also use the on-line tools that help me break down how much I've spent at restaurants, how much at grocery stores, how much for gas, etc, so that I can tell if, for example, we've been driving a lot more than usual and the gas expenses are higher than usual. Or if I've spent $200 on restaurants, so I'm going to make sure that I bring my lunch this week (I give myself a limit to how much we spend in restaurants each month). I find the on-line tools help me track monthly usage much better instead of "Hmmm...I've spent $100 in cash, I wonder what I spent it on?"

FYI, I use Discover which breaks down the spending into some very useful categories. I get 1% back on all purchases, with certain categories paying 5% in given quarters (this quarter is gas stations, theme parks and movies up to $1500 spending or $75 cash back). So far, since November (my anniversary date), I have earned about $450 cash back.

For example, in the last month we've spent about $3300 in the following breakdown:
$200 automotive + gas
$800 medical
$800 merchandise ($350 on new convertible car seats!)
$600 restaurants (unusually high with 6 days eating out due to the derecho, our anniversary and one other event)
$800 groceries
$100 miscellaneous (including some utilities)

I can tell that our usual monthly budget on restaurants is about $300, but the derecho had us eat out a lot when we were out of power for 6 days. Although we camped out in our underground basement at night, during the days we went out for long lunches and sometimes dinners, so we ate out a lot more than usual. Likewise, groceries was a little high because we had to replace a lot of food (I threw out food for two fridges and two freezers) after the derecho.

If I spent cash or debit, I'd need to do a lot more work with receipts and notes to keep track of all of this. It would be significantly more work. Before the spending analyzer, I didn't keep as close watch on what we spent on, but then that was pre-kids and we had a LOT more disposable income as DINKS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who charge monthly expenses and pay off every month, how do you ensure that you have enough to pay it off every month?
Do you not carry your debit card and pay cash only?

Do you pay the bill all at once, or do you make several payments to your credit during the month?

I worry that psychologically, I would see the high checking balance, and think that we have more to spend than we do.

I think this strategy only works when you have a large margin of error and generally spend less than you bring in per month. I keep my checking account pretty high, and it's rare that we spend the same as what we make. So we are able to pay it off every month, all at once (although I have had to stagger the bills' due dates so they aren't all hitting in the beginning of the month.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Serious question: If you have the money in the month, why are you putting that much on a credit card on a monthly basis for your living expenses? Why not just use your checking card and have it taken out your bank account?

We get cash back.

Cant u get cash back from your bank card|?

"Cash back" in this context is free money--our card automatically gives us back 1% of what we spend, though deals vary. (Different than paying for something by debit card, then getting cash also--in that case, the amount of cash is added to the total of what you're buying. No free money there.)

Ahh got it thanks! Geesh im kind of mad that ive been missing the cashback all these years.. iive def got to find a good cash rewards card and start charging asap!

A good cash back card is Chase Freedom. 1% on everything, 5% on certain categories for each quarter. Right now the 5% is for restaurants/bars/gas stations. Last quarter was grocery stores and amazon.

Do you mind sharing what interest rate you're paying? TIA.

I also have Chase Freedom and have no idea what the interest rate is, because I never pay carry a balance. If you carry a balance, you'd want to prioritize lower interest rates, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the $5K pp's here

Here's the general breakdown:

$1000 - food (including groceries, eating out and paper goods)
$700 - shopping (clothing, activities, toiletries, car repairs, household goods)
$100 - cell phone
$60 - auto insurance
$135 - cable/phone/internet
$50 - gym+WW
$50 - doctors
$200 - gas
$200 - student loan
$2100 - preschool tuition
$40 - water bill
travel - varies

I'm the one who asked for the breakdown - I appreciate this. And that $2100 of your $5000 is preschool. So really your credit card bill is more like less than $3000, which seems much more reasonable to me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question: If you have the money in the month, why are you putting that much on a credit card on a monthly basis for your living expenses? Why not just use your checking card and have it taken out your bank account?

We get cash back.

Cant u get cash back from your bank card|?

"Cash back" in this context is free money--our card automatically gives us back 1% of what we spend, though deals vary. (Different than paying for something by debit card, then getting cash also--in that case, the amount of cash is added to the total of what you're buying. No free money there.)

Ahh got it thanks! Geesh im kind of mad that ive been missing the cashback all these years.. iive def got to find a good cash rewards card and start charging asap!

A good cash back card is Chase Freedom. 1% on everything, 5% on certain categories for each quarter. Right now the 5% is for restaurants/bars/gas stations. Last quarter was grocery stores and amazon.

Do you mind sharing what interest rate you're paying? TIA.

I think the point is that no one here is paying interest - we're all paying off our credit card every month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who charge monthly expenses and pay off every month, how do you ensure that you have enough to pay it off every month?
Do you not carry your debit card and pay cash only?

Do you pay the bill all at once, or do you make several payments to your credit during the month?

I worry that psychologically, I would see the high checking balance, and think that we have more to spend than we do.

My answer for this is that I am smart enough and have enough self control to not buy things that I can't afford or don't need - it's really the same concept as using a debit card if you know how much is in your checking account you'll only spend what you have. If we spend as we normally do, then we know in general what our monthly bill is going to be (in our case it's more like $2500/month). And I check our bill throughout the month to ensure that there aren't any unusual charges on there.

I only pay once a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who charge monthly expenses and pay off every month, how do you ensure that you have enough to pay it off every month?
Do you not carry your debit card and pay cash only?

Do you pay the bill all at once, or do you make several payments to your credit during the month?

I worry that psychologically, I would see the high checking balance, and think that we have more to spend than we do.

I think this strategy only works when you have a large margin of error and generally spend less than you bring in per month. I keep my checking account pretty high, and it's rare that we spend the same as what we make. So we are able to pay it off every month, all at once (although I have had to stagger the bills' due dates so they aren't all hitting in the beginning of the month.

Not necessarily - I've always paid off my credit cards every month. When I was a student with very little income and now, when I have a great income. It's really just about self control and knowing what you have. And obviously I spend less than they bring in per month.

I think that people who have a propensity to go into credit card debt should switch to using cash only - not even debit cards b/c they can get overdrawn with those. If you are using only cash, then you are forced to spend only what you have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who charge monthly expenses and pay off every month, how do you ensure that you have enough to pay it off every month?
Do you not carry your debit card and pay cash only?

Do you pay the bill all at once, or do you make several payments to your credit during the month?

I worry that psychologically, I would see the high checking balance, and think that we have more to spend than we do.

My answer for this is that I am smart enough and have enough self control to not buy things that I can't afford or don't need - it's really the same concept as using a debit card if you know how much is in your checking account you'll only spend what you have. If we spend as we normally do, then we know in general what our monthly bill is going to be (in our case it's more like $2500/month). And I check our bill throughout the month to ensure that there aren't any unusual charges on there.

I only pay once a month.

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