BAD! If zero-based, no savings!

The idea should always be: SPEND LESS THAN YOU EARN.

No offense to San Bernardinans, but to be perfectly clear: that last city was included as a joke. I’m not a fan. My wife and I refer to it as “the armpit of America”.

(Now watch: the San Bernardino loyalists will come out in force!)

Go to San Diego – America’s finest city )

Sullivan writes that you should have two cards. You use one exclusively until it becomes obvious that you’re not going to be able to pay the bill in full that month; then you switch to the second.

Maybe I’m uptight, but my two cents is that the instant you realize you won’t be able to pay a credit card bill in full, you STOP USING CREDIT, “clean card” or not. Otherwise, you’re just turning a bad situation into an overly complicated, bad situation. And you *absolutely* need to stop charging things like lunches out.

“And then it will be WARM and rainy!” I have to admit that I don’t mind paying the California premium even if fall is a little bit dull.

Mike

I couldn’t even read the rest of your post after reading that…

But as much as I loathe the six months of winter, it’s about this time of year where you know spring is just around the corner. And there is nothing more exciting and uplifting than the anticipation of warmer weather and things turning green. I think it’s the thrill of knowing that change is always coming is what makes it all worthwhile.

Although I will admit, once the holidays are over you could ship me off to Phoenix or somewhere in Florida until March and I wouldn’t complain

I’m less hateful toward auto paying bills and using your credit card. But auto paying anything directly from my bank, with my actual money is a HUGE no no for me.

I’m sure there are a lot of people for whom it’s no big deal, because they have their many months of emergency funds stashed safely away and their checking accounts are never that close to the wire. But so many people are paycheck to paycheck, and currently I’m one of them.

1.) I don’t like the idea of paying my actual money until I’ve verified that the bill I’m paying with it is accurate. If I use auto pay for other bills using a credit card, I can have the bill paid and still get any issues fixed before my actual money is at stake.

2.) As I said, so many people are paycheck to paycheck, and so few jobs are certain at the moment. It would only take one auto payment to fail, or to go through at an inopportune time, to cause a real mess. In some cases it might be better to buy food with the money you have rather than pay more than the minimum on the credit card. If payroll screws up a check, or if you lose your job suddenly, having all those payments automated can kill you. Having them automated makes it very very easy not to pay attention to specific line items on a bill or even to forget that they’re happening.

I think it’s much much better to get into the habit of taking 15 minutes each week to log into each credit card account and make any necessary payments manually. It becomes a habit, and it’s a higher level of involvement than “set it and forget it,” because in a perfect storm that can be very dangerous.