Tools for Keeping Track of your Credit Cards
Saturday, December 8th, 2007One of the biggest reasons people have trouble with their credit cards is that they don’t properly keep track of them. They make late payments because they don’t know when the due dates are on each card. They go over their credit limit by using cards that are about to be maxed out instead of cards that have credit free on them. Or they don’t realize that they’re paying excessive interest rates because they weren’t paying attention to the fact that their promotional low-interest deals ran out on certain cards. Knowing the details about each card is crucial to keeping your credit card debt under control.
The most effective tool that you can use to keep track of your credit cards is a simple spreadsheet. You can create this yourself using a basic spreadsheet function (such as Excel). The first column of the spreadsheet should be the name of each credit card company. The next three columns that you will want on this spreadsheet are the total amount of credit available on the card, the amount of debt currently owed and the amount of credit this leaves available for use. You may want to add an additional column which shows the amount available for cash advances if this differs from the amount available for use.
In the next column, you want to make sure that you include what the interest rate for each card is. Place in bold letters any dates that promotional rates will end and what the new interest rate will be. The next two columns should be the bill’s due date each month and the minimum amount of payment that is due. The final column should be for “notes”. These notes might include specific information that you want to remind yourself of, notes about fees associated with the account (especially annual fees) and any information that the company sends you.
In addition to the spreadsheet, you will want to keep a calendar. On this calendar, you should put the due date of every single credit card that you have. You should include the minimum payment amount, the total amount due and the interest rate on the card. This will help you to make sure that you don’t miss any payments. It will also remind you as to how much you need to pay and which cards should be paid off more quickly than others in order to reduce your debt. By making use of the spreadsheet and calendar tools to keep track of your cards, you’ll be able to stop accumulating fees and start putting your money to better use.
