In the interests of making the bill-paying a once a month activity instead of trying to keep track of bills and differing due dates, I'm thinking of calling my credit card company and requesting a change in due-date. Is this a good idea?

As long as you can manage paying your bills that are due on the same day, that is fine. Just remember that your checking account will grow much larger and you need to remember not to spend it because you are holding it to pay off your cards.

I personally made half my bills due the first week, and the other half mid-month, since I get paid every two weeks this eases the burden.

And you never know if your employer makes a mistake on your paycheck, then you are are really in a bind if you don't have enough cash in the account.

I did this a long time ago by asking my credit card company to change all three cards to the same due date near the beginning of the month. Before they were staggered ... so having them all on the same cycle ... and all at the beginning of the month due to personal preference ... has greatly reduced maintenance time for reconciling my accounts. I use CalendarBudget to project out my account balances ... so I always know if I have enough to cover it (or if I need to infuse cash from elsewhere or otherwise let it dip into the line of credit temporarily).

I just set up automatic payments for all my bills. They are all spread out throughout the month, but I don't have to worry about the due dates.

You can also consider using free online bill paying services like www.Manilla.com, or automatic bill pay through your bank (if it has one).

Contacting the credit card companies to change the due dates can be a good option. But I don’t think all credit card issuers will agree to it.