There aren’t many drawbacks to automating your finances, but one you occasionally encounter is having to update all of your bills when you get a new credit or debit card. To make it easier, finance writer J.Money suggests making a list of every account linked to your cards.
Photo by Sean MacEntee.
Maybe your card info was hacked and you had to order a new one. Or maybe you got a new chip credit card and your old one no longer works. Whatever the scenario, it can be a minor pain to go through all of the accounts linked to your card. Having a list of those accounts on hand is incredibly useful when that happens.
Over at Budgets Are Sexy, J. Money points to a couple of other reasons why this tip is helpful.
- It makes updating your new card everywhere MUCH faster
- It prevents any late fees from happening, or worse — shutting off of services since you don’t forget where it’s all listed anymore!
- It keeps stress levels as low as possible
- And it forces you to re-evaluate all the services/apps/products/bills you have to see if it’s still worth including in your life.
All it takes is sitting down and making a list once, and then as you link new accounts, simply add them to the list. For more detail, head to J.Money’s full post.
TIP: Make a list of where all your credit cards are listed! [Budgets Are Sexy]
Comments
6 responses to “Why You Should Make A List Of Every Account Linked To Your Credit Cards”
Or you could just go through your bank statement
Or you could actually budget… And, if you really don’t know which account is paying for what, then you probably should budget because you’re obviously a joke with money…
In my case basically everything goes on one of two rewards credit cards, depending on which provider takes AMEX and which doesn’t.
I card hop a bit so it’s handy having a list of all my providers and which card they’re paid on so I can update them all in an hour or so when I change cards.
You might think it’s easy but when it gets down to once a year payments like ambulance or VPN subscription, or stuff that I hardly ever use like toll road or public transport accounts it’s more convenient to have a list.
Yes, and if you had an actual budget of your accounts, you wouldn’t need a list. Your budget would tell you which payments needed to be moved when you close the old account 😉
These days, there’s really no excuse considering how easy it is to automatically pull all of your banking data into a commercial budgeting program. Keeping a list requires way more labour and is more likely prone to errors…
I needed a budget when I was 20, I don’t need one now. When I did need one I didn’t need a commercial application to know where my money went. I also kept a mental tally of my shopping total to the cent as I filled my trolley, but I don’t do that any more either!
In any case, if you find it easier to use a commercial application then more power to you.
Cool so you have no income, nothing to claim on tax, no investments, no mortgage, property, assets, savings etc. More power to you man!
If my accountant got a hold of you he’d at least set you up with a spreadsheet before killing you with the credits and debits lecture…
Everyone needs a budget. 😉