If you earn enough to pay your bills, but are always just a day ot two late, this small adjustment to your bill paying methods could save you lots of money and add an add’l 50 points to your credit score. . . enough to get you more favorable interest rates on your auto and home mortgage loans.
If your credit card company charges you a $35 late fee when your payment is only 1 day late, that is tantamount to pulling $35 out of your wallet and lighting a match to it. Is that nuts? Who in their right mind would do that!!!!
So if your payment ‘due dates’ have a tendency to sneak up on you, and you’re constantly paying late, you’ll love the solution… it is so simple.
Check the last statement you received to see what the card’s minimum payment is and when it is due. Add $10 to that amount; then set up your bank account’s Bill Pay to ‘automatic recurring payments’ for three days ahead of the normal due date. (Should cover variations due to a weekend.)
Naturally, when you pay your bills each month, you will want to pay more than the minimum amount since paying minimums would take you 30 years to get out of debt. (Can you even imagine how much interest that would be?)
So the plan is, when you get around to paying your bills each month, you can either adjust the minimum if it hasn’t posted
yet, or make a second payment for that month. AND… the best thing is, by setting up those minimums ahead of time, you will never again pay a late fee – plus, all three credit bureaus will
reflect your ‘on-time’ payments every single month.