I’ve changed the way I use my credit cards and the way I pay them a number of times. This is the beauty of having a budget that is flexible. I use it one way as it suits my needs and then change when it does not.

Old way

In the past, I would pay my credit cards by setting up a payment in Capital One 360 to push a payment every week. This worked great because I could see the payment in Capital One each time I checked. I was also able to closely monitor the balance on each card until the end of the month.

I used to make payments from my checking account on the 2nd, 9th, 16th, and 23rd of each month. Then I would try to close out any outstanding balance on the 30th by making that payment via the card website.

New way

I am changing the way I pay my credit cards for 2022 because I have a slightly better way. What I will do now is set up the payment through the card website on a weekly basis. This means I will not be setting them up in my checking account. While that sounds a bit scary, I will still record the payment. I keep a spreadsheet of my purchases and payments on a monthly basis in Google documents. This lets me see how much I need to pay on each card, since I normally use two different ones each month.

credit cards
credit cards

I will also change the dates to be the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th so I have four payments for the month. The final payment on the 28th will always be the balance on that date so the card will be paid in full. I’ve used some version of multiple payments for YEARS and have not had to carry a balance or pay interest.

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