This sucks. My current system is to pay all my bills sometime before the 10th of the month, which allows me to both procrastinate for a reasonable amount of time and spend most of my time blissfully not thinking about bills . I will have to check my credit card statements, and if that’s no longer feasible, I may do what someone who commented on the blog does: sets up an automatic payment that will be more than the minimum payment, then pays off the rest of the CC bill with the rest of his/her bills.
You might try www.MyCheckFree.com They pay all your bills and you get an email when one comes in. You have a lot of choices what to do by default, pay all, pay minimum, pay set amount, pay at last minute or right away, etc.
It works for all my bills but rent and Mervyn’s dept store.
I pay bills online now. It has worked well for me- it forces me to look over the credit card statement. If I weren’t forced to do it, that would almost certainly become one more thing I know I should do, and I “will do someday”, but I never get around to doing.
I’ve definitely noticed that there is far less time to pay a credit card once the statement arrives. From an NPR story on credit cards a few years ago: Far from being considered good credit risks, people who pay credit card balances in full and on time, and who pay no annual fees are considered to be “deadbeats” by the credit card companies. So, the late charge was jacked up to about the cost of the (previously imposed) annual fee. The credit card companies hope that people will miss one (or more) payment(s) each year, thereby getting a late charge and associated interest charges. Tightening the payment time means that they have a better chance of doing this.
Something else to look out for: I recently lost a credit card. I don’t know where, and I’m not sure whether a clerk returned it to me. Two days later I noticed it was gone, and I called to cancel. No unauthorized charges, thank goodness. The customer service representative (and I use the term “customer service” rather loosely) told me that they would send a new credit card, and would “throw in some information” about their credit fraud protection program. A week later I got a package thanking me for enrolling in their credit fraud protection program, and that I “would be billed at the amount agreed upon” when I enrolled. Ironic that the defrauders would be offering me protection. :rolleyes:
. I will have to check my credit card statements, and if that’s no longer feasible, I may do what someone who commented on the blog does: sets up an automatic payment that will be more than the minimum payment, then pays off the rest of the CC bill with the rest of his/her bills.