Some random bits:
- It’s been a while, so I decided to again request automatic credit limit increases on my Citibank and American Express card. Got $3,000 in credit limits with no credit score hit.
- I also saved $10 by getting a free notary public signature from my WaMu Free Checking account. Got a free medallion signature guarantee too, although that’s free at a lot of banks.
- An MSN Money article outlines the perils of automatic bill pay. I don’t like the idea of giving companies permission to take money out of my accounts either. Here’s another horror story. If anything, use credit cards for automatic billing and not checking accounts! I still use paper statements for bills, and electronic statements from most banks and brokerages.
- Madame X graciously hosted this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance.
The Best Credit Card Bonus Offers – March 2024
Big List of Free Stocks from Brokerage Apps
Best Interest Rates on Cash - March 2024
Free Credit Scores x 3 + Free Credit Monitoring
Best No Fee 0% APR Balance Transfer Offers
Little-Known Cellular Data Plans That Can Save Big Money
How To Haggle Your Cable or Direct TV Bill
Big List of Free Consumer Data Reports (Credit, Rent, Work)
All of my automatic bills are either paid via credit card, or I initiate them on the bank side using BOA’s billpay. There’s only one exception to that, my (cable) internet bill, which _must_ be autopaid, and _must_ be autopaid through my checking account. Here’s hoping they don’t screw up…
Just because it’s user-initiated doesn’t mean you can’t screw up, though. Just this month I scheduled a large CC payment (~$7k) for yesterday and a complementary transfer from savings a few days before that. I changed my mind and canceled the savings transfer without canceling the payment. At 4pm yesterday I remembered my mistake and had to rush to the ATM to deposit a check to cover the difference. Amazingly, BOA followed through and deposited the check first, although they have a reputation for doing the opposite. Disaster averted! These new ATMs with scanners are pretty cool.
BOA gives you free notary public as well, just FYI.
That’s a bummer. Yes, but those screw-ups are under my control. 😉
Really? Last time I asked they weren’t free. I’ve gotten over 10 medallion sig guarantees at BofA though.
Only would have been a bummer if they’d not honored the deposit in time. 😀 I certainly had that ” oh @%#$” moment as I quickly scribbled out the check and ran to the ATM.
But yeah, being under my control is why I do it this way – let the money be pushed out and I have the ability to cancel it up to the last moment. I have all of my CC bills set to auto-pay the due amount a couple of weeks early and then I can go in and adjust anything above that. That way I know I’m covered if I forget (or drop dead). If I had overdraft protection that somehow pulled from my emigrantdirect account, I could be dead for a year before any bills would get cut off… Luckily the maintenance men clean the filters in my apt every few months. 😉
I’ve only had to get one thing notarized in the entire time I’ve had an account with them (BOA), but they told me it was free if I was a customer. I mean, they actually did notarize it for free.
Thanks for the reminder on the credit limit update. I tried it when the article first came out and I only got the option of a hard credit check. Today (after living frugally and paying off my credit card and leaving it alone like you advise) I got the option to raise my credit limit 2000.
Thanks, increased my Citi limit for fun by $3000
I’ve never had a problem with automatic payments. Its so easy and convenient. I have all my utilities set to the equal monthly payment so there’s not any surprises. Dealing with large utility companies, mortgage companies, and phone companies is not the same as Joe’s Karate shop.
First, I’d never give my info to Joe’s Karate shop. Second, I’d never sign a long term contract that required monthly payments for something like that. If Joe wanted me to sign a $200/month one year contract for Karate, and I was serious about Karate, I’d ask for an up front cash discount of, say $900 for the whole year.
Did you get a bank related document notarized? I called my local WAMU couple of weeks back and was told that the notary was free only for WAMU bank related documents.
I have my 0% credit card minimum payments set as a scheduled transaction through Chase. The rest I kick off manually from Chase’s web interface which is really nice. I use this for most everything. I also consider scheduled payments set up through their interface to be safe because they are authorized on my end – I am not authorizing a third party to make regular withdrawals, but for the most part if the company accepts credit card it is better to put it on a rewards card. I then use the bank’s bill pay for all my credit cards, but this has to be manually done each month as the amount changes.
I also have as many bills as possible notify me by email without sending the paper copy. This system works well for me.
“Did you get a bank related document notarized? I called my local WAMU couple of weeks back and was told that the notary was free only for WAMU bank related documents.”
Nope, it was not related to WaMu or any bank at all. This change in their policy was made effective May 1st, though, which is why I brought it up.
is it always advantageous to increase your credit card limit? what if you have a decent amount of (non-credit card) debt (i.e., student loans) – how would a larger credit card limit affect your credit score (assuming you pay the loan off every month)?
EDIT to last comment: it should be assuming you pay the CREDIT CARD off every month.
also, in order to “not carry a balance” in regards to my card, do I just need to pay off my full balance every month never incurring finance charges, or does each statement actually have to be $0 (as in charge something on the card and pay it off within 2 days before the statement prints)?
A larger credit limit should help your credit score, as your utilization ratio (debt divided by available credit) should go down.
If you want $0 to show on your credit report, then it has to end at $0 each money on the statement. However, that doesn’t mean you actually paid any interest due to the grace period on most cards.
This is why a bigger credit limit helps your score. If you have a smaller card, say $2000 limit, and charge $1,000 on it, even if you pay in full after getting the statement your credit report will show that $2,000 as the last monthly balance on the account showing a 50% utilization. But if your limit was $4,000, you’d only have a 25% utilization, and so on.
thanks for your answers – sort of a follow-up clarification question:
let’s say my statement prints on the 30th, and is due the following 15th – is it better that my statement say $0 or that my statement say $1000 and be paid off by the 15th? It seems that charging money and being able to pay it off would provide more value…
I think I’ve got it – the best way to have a credit card positively affect you is to show some activity (so NOT a $0 statement, because that would indicate *inactivity*), and paying it off in full doesn’t necessarily help (except that you don’t incur finance charges), but it’s generally good. So $0 statements are like credit cards in drawers, which after a little while, actually hurt your rating.
I just wait for the statement – it’s easier and I get the float from the grace period. However, my balances are also usually very small compared to my limits, and I am not too concerned about tiny variations in my credit score.
If, for some reason, one wanted to “peak” their credit score, I might pay them all off.
I have never seen any indication from an official source that unused credit cards hurt one’s credit score. On a similar note, I have also seen no dependable proof that “paying some interest” raises your credit score. There are lots of rumors out there…
How do you know the increases didn’t hurt your credit score?
“m an official source that unused credit cards hurt one?s credit score. On a similar note, I have also seen no dependable proof that ?paying some interest? raises your credit score. There are lots of rumors out there?”
I’m not sure about the first part either (whether it’s good *or* bad *or* neither), but I didn’t mention anything about paying interest (I assume you mean finance charges on a carried balance) being good for your score – I just meant that paying your balance in full vs. paying the minimum amount is really more of a “do you want to pay the interest” question than a “will one help my credit more than the other.”
sprintie – I know you didn’t, I wasn’t trying to admonish you or anything. I just used both as examples of credit score myths. FICO has a Free FICO Score Estimator which shows most of the major factors that go into credit scores.
Dog – If you click on my link above explaining the process, you’ll see it explicitly tell you that no credit pull was performed.
Could you improve your utilization to a negative value by maintaining a credit balance on some accounts? Say you over pay by a couple hundred or enough so that you never actually owe anything on your credit cards?
Does anyone have a corrected link to the Perils of automatic banking article? Its not working for me as it is.
I try to keep all my payments user initiazlied when I can, but sometimes I think I should switch because it’s still a pain in the ass to make all those payments. When I can’t make it from a credit card and or have it user initiated, I feel comfortable at least the funds are coming from checking account which I only keep enough money to service my bills…
I try to use my credit card for anything I can, but there are still a few that withdraw straight from my checking account because those are the only payments they’ll take short of checks (mortgage, cable, gas/electric and credit cards).
I’ve heard so many horror stories about every way to pay, short of cash, that I’ve kind of resigned myself to say that if I can’t pay with a credit card, I’ll try to cut every step out of the middle that I can because the more steps, the higher the chance for mistakes.
I’ve heard of banks processing checks as $5,400 instead of $540 and then giving people a hard time about fixing and reimbursing the money (hi, Commerce Bank). I’ve accidentally mailed my rent check years ago to the water company and they cashed it even though their name wasn’t on the Pay To line ($1200 vs $35 – hmmm, helluva prepayment)! I’ve done user-initiated transactions online with Chase (when they were using Presentment for payments) and they deducted the money twice. I won’t mail a check because the post office has lost my payments before. Plus, there’s the chance that someone could steal the check. I’ve also heard of a company setting someone up for automatic payments based on their acct and routing info on their check, no permission given (hello, Comcast). I’ve also heard of a bank mailing out payments through their BillPay late and then pointing out that in their terms, they have, like, 10 days from the pay on date or something similar to send the payment (hello, again, Commerce Bank).
I micromanage my accounts through Yodlee and I think that’s about the best thing I can do to ease my mind. Otherwise, stories like the ones above would drive me insane.