Does anyone else "prepay" their credit card?

AprilZ81 · December 2015

I think there area few around here who do this, but I'm bored and curious.

We track our spending in a budget app and normally we don't pay our credit card bill until it is due. Today I decided that since we had our Christmas and vacation funds available and we know how much we had spent that I would go ahead and make an extra payment to our account to save on some sticker shock next month. I added up what we had spent on Christmas, our vacation plans and our new freezer and just paid it all off. We will still have a bill with our normal spending on it and it might be a little higher than normal, but it shouldn't make my heart race to see the total amount due.

So who all does this and how often?

jessica490 · December 2015

Yes, we do that on occasion when we've spent more than we normally do. Maybe a few times a year? We just did it this week. Our CC was racked up to $2200 but we had the cash put aside for the "extra's" that were on there (oil tank fill up, furniture deposit, new TV) and I just made a partial payment so I don't have heart failure when the bill comes in the mail LOL. not a fan of that. So yes, I think it's common and a good plan when things like this come up so no one's scrambling for $2K when the bill comes in the mail

als1982 · December 2015

We make a payment every Saturday or Sunday, when we sit down to do the budget. I don't consider it pre-paying since the money has already been spent, but we make sure to payoff all charges the same week they're made. We never have to worry about interest charges, and it makes the budget easier to track and stick to.

simplyelise · December 2015

Yeah, I almost always pay my credit card balance as soon as something posts. In the past when I was single, I would sometimes wait until the bill came to help with cashflow, but that was the exception not the rule.

My only credit card is through my bank where I have our checking and savings. So paying it only takes maybe two clicks. Honestly, I don't even open the bills most of the time, just put them in a pile and then file them every so often. Usually they're filled with solicitations for me to write cash checks (recently had a filled out check for me to sign to myself for $10k lol) from my credit card account or transfer a balance or whatever.

Erikan73 · December 2015

I pay many of our credit cards weekly when I do my budget updates. Especially on hubbies CC because it has such a low limit on it. He only uses it for haircuts and gas but I like for him to some room on it in case of emergency. The purpose of that card is to help him rebuild his credit. The other CC are for reward points which is why we use them over just the debit card. So with paying them weekly, it helps to insure that we are paying them on time to avoid fees or interest. Also then the money is accounted for in budget.

hoffse · December 2015

I do this in a limited capacity. I'll do it when we're being reimbursed for something and don't have to float the costs. For example, H collected the money for the staff Christmas gifts this year, so I went ahead and paid that charge so that I can match expenses with reimbursements.

Same with large charges we have saved for - I do pay those off immediately.

Otherwise, not really. I feel like the larger cc bills keep me honest about how much I've spent, and watching the balance creep up through the month always seems to inspire me to put the brakes on at the end of the month. I do track specific categories of spending on my budget sheet, but TBH my biggest concern is the net balance across all of my cards. Once I've paid a balance down I don't think about it anymore. I think if I paid off charges as I incurred them I would spend more because the balance would never look very big.

EDIT: The other thing is that my bank automatically transfers $1 to savings every time I pay a bill. It's really annoying, but they aren't able to deactivate it. I have stayed with that bank because there's a branch that's walking distance to our house and also to our office, so it's really convenient when we have to cash a live check. Believe me, the minute H's work stops doing reimbursements with live checks we will switch banks (mine does a direct deposit reimbursement). But yeah, if I paid off charges as I incurred them I would probably have $100 sent to savings each month that is unintentional. Every now and then I move some of it back, but it's still really annoying because you only get 6 transfers per month out of a savings account.

dragonstarjk · December 2015

I typically pay my CC as soon as things post; usually I make at least a payment per week. I actually would prefer to prepay knowing items are going to be posting soon, but none of my CCs will let me pay more than the current balance, even if the items are pending.

Xstatic3333 · December 2015

I prepay daily. Since I'm usually floating some work expenses too, I don't even wait until things post. It's the only way to keep me honest.

abrewer5 · December 2015

I pay my credit card every time I get paid, so yeah I guess I do "pre-pay" it. It works for me. I usually don't look at the statements just the current balance and the total of any pending transactions and go from there. I haven't had to pay interest doing it this way, so it works for me.

brij2006 · December 2015

I always did when we used cards for everyday purchases. I would put each transaction into our check register and subtract it out as we spent. Then at the end of the week I would make a payment to the card for what was put on it that past week.

cbee817 · December 2015

I just wait for the due date.. helps me plan out the month quickly with having one withdrawl per credit card or bill.

jtmh2012 · December 2015

Nope. The bill comes and I pay it.

csuave · December 2015

No prepaying on credit cards.

Sometimes we prepay on the cable or phone though. If we have a Visa or Amex giftcard or rebate card we might put it to the cable bill so we can spend it all at once and not have to track it or manage carrying the card around with us. I find these cards to be an inconvenience and just want to get rid of them quickly, even if that means prepaying a month or two on the cable.

I don't think these cards can be used to pay credit cards, if they could I would use them that way.

maple2 · December 2015

I only prepay if for some reason I expect us to get close to our credit limit in a given month and I want to make sure we don't get our cards denied for maxing them out. Luckily, that very rarely happens.

vlagrl29 · December 2015

Yes I prepay - we use the credit card for online purchases so I like to keep on top of those. Sometimes I do 2-3 payments a month.

short+sassy · December 2015

This has been interesting to see everyone's different attitudes/strategies.

I primarily pay my credit cards when my direct deposits hit from my p/t IC job. So I often pay at least some of my cards twice a month, which is how often that job pays.

I often do just pay the whole card off instead of just the statement balance. It really just depends. If it is a card I don't use that often anyway, I'll do that just so I don't have to worry about paying it again until I charge on it again. If the difference between the balance and statement balance isn't much, then I'll just pay it off to have it done.

Although this situation doesn't come up much, if I put a large charge on my card, I'll often pay it faster as I can cash flow it. For example, with my construction, I had a big $4K charge to fill in the foundation...which I was getting reimbursed for from my loan. As soon as I got my reimbursement, I paid that charge off.

smetter04 · December 2015

We pay the statement balance two days before the bill is due. We have pre-paid the entire balance a couple times this year, once to free up funds to purchase airfare to Europe and the next time before our trip in order to free up funds in case of emergency, but it's not normal for us.

short+sassy · December 2015

smetter04 said:

We pay the statement balance two days before the bill is due. We have pre-paid the entire balance a couple times this year, once to free up funds to purchase airfare to Europe and the next time before our trip in order to free up funds in case of emergency, but it's not normal for us.

Yes! That is a great reason also to pay ahead. I did that all the time in my younger days when I only had one card with only a $500 limit. And I've done it once in awhile in recent years for large purchases.

Mustard76 · December 2015

abrewer5 said:
I pay my credit card every time I get paid, so yeah I guess I do "pre-pay" it. It works for me. I usually don't look at the statements just the current balance and the total of any pending transactions and go from there. I haven't had to pay interest doing it this way, so it works for me.

Same here. I make payments every payday. We use our cards for everything, so we reconcile with every paycheck. We still pay our statement balance in full, generally plus some. But it works for us nicely.

PurpleBookmark · December 2015

I pay our credit card several times per week. It's kind of silly, but I find if I don't keep up on our budget at least every few days I can't remember what the charges are for (for example just seeing Target I can't remember what we bought or where it goes in the budget). So I check our credit card and checking account, enter anything spent into our budget notebook, make any transfers needed (from gifts or holidays) and then pay the balance or at least as much as possible. It sounds a little crazy but it takes me roughly 5 minutes if I keep up on it.

Nat009 · December 2015

I pay our "everyday" credit card weekly since I budget weekly due to pay-periods. I will also usually pay down/off other cards before they post also to keep our balances low (we are working on improving my husbands credit). However, our weekly paycheck will move to bimonthly soon, so I suppose I need to update my current "weekly" budget soon... Ugh!

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