Managing multiple credit cards

Here are a few tips to help you manage your multiple credit cards with success.

11:46 24 September 2013

If you happen to have multiple credit cards, you probably know how easy it is to lose track of information and miss a due date. It’s also easy to overspend when you have multiple credit cards. It is possible to keep more than one credit card, but it’s imperative to develop a system to track them so you do not end up paying penalty or default interest rates instead of introductory or regular interest rates.

Here are a few recommendations to help you keep all those credit cards in order.

• Use a calendar of sorts--either paper or electronic--and set up reminders for due dates and approximate amounts of your monthly payments so you’ll have the information available to you at a glance. This saves a lot of time, and helps prevent mix-ups with due dates.

 

• Know your credit limits—you can create a digital file such as a spreadsheet, or use a little notebook to keep track of important details like daily spending limits, cash advance limits, special interest rates and your credit limit. When you make your purchases remember to leave room for finance charges. If you forget and spend as much as your credit limit will allow, your finance charges could put you over your limit, which could cause a hefty fee.

 

• If you think you might get into spending trouble with credit cards consider requesting that your credit limits be lowered. You can also see if it’s possible to set up automatic payments so that your credit card bills don’t get out of control.

 

• If you are looking to get rid of some of those credit cards, you can either work on paying off the card with highest interest, or the smallest balance.