Keep an Eye on your Credit Card Automatic Bill Pay

In these tough economic times, with falling credit lines and mass layoffs, it’s increasingly important to keep an eye on your finances.

While I recommend looking after all your banking and credit card accounts on at least a weekly basis, important attention should be paid to automatic bill payments.

These days, most of us have recurring bills paid automatically through a variety of different services, generally via a credit card or a bank account to save us time and hassle, and most importantly, to ensure we don’t forget to pay our bills.

However, if you typically pay your bills with a credit card and you’re running a high balance on the related card, or your credit line has recently been cut, a single automatic payment for something as simple as a monthly gym membership bill could send you over the limit.

That’s why you need to keep track of all the bills you pay automatically each month, especially now that your credit line might not be as high as it once was a month earlier.

If you feel you could be in danger of exceeding one of your credit lines, make a list of all your monthly expenses paid via automatic bill pay to keep track of how much money is coming and going where.

The last thing you want after a cut credit line is an over-the-limit fee for a monthly expense you could have paid with your checking account.

If you do receive a notice that your credit card line has been cut, and it puts you on the brink, make necessary arrangements immediately to move any automatic bill payments to another source.