Thrifty Mommy

How to pay off your credit cards each month

by kellys on February 8th, 2008

 When I used to use credit cards to build my credit, I had a built in way to keep myself out of trouble.  I would put each charge in my check book in parentheses and subtract that charge out of my balance.  That way I knew I had already allocated the money for the end of the month.  When I got my credit card statement, I would make sure all the charges were accurate by checking my check book.  This way, I knew all the charges were correct and matched what I had accounted for.  Then I would make sure the total was what I had already taken out of my account.  That way, when I paid the bill each month, I wasn’t scrounging for the money.  By putting the charges in parentheses, I wasn’t taking out the money twice.  I would write the check and draw a line in my balance column.  This way, I would know that the balance was ok and when the check cleared the bank from the credit card company, I would check off all the charges and the check to the credit card.  It sounds odd but I always had money to pay my bill each month and never got into trouble.

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