Found Money - Stopping little charges everywhere
We all need to find some money, right? “Find a penny pick it up and all day long you’ll have good luck” or so the saying goes.
I’ve stopped using my credit card for all but work-related travel (which gets reimbursed) and the infrequent online purchase. I stopped treating my credit card statement like my 401k statement - tucking it in the drawer without opening it and I found some money! How so?
Recurring Credit Card Charges
Yes, recurring credit card charges, the monthly charges for services you likely forgot you signed up for and no longer use. You know, the Typepad blog account for $4.95/mo., the AOL service you no longer use, the subscription to have access for your monthly credit report (which I get for free off of my online bank account). It all adds up.
I went through and highlighted what I absolutely didn’t need and/or was work-related that I hadn’t been expensing. I scheduled two hours to go online, get on the phone and cancel the accounts and in one case for an monthly insurance charge looked to have my rate reduced. How much did I save? $94.93 a month or $1139.16 annually, not including interest charges.
Take a look at your latest statement. How much do you have in recurring charges?
Comment by canoer on 24 October 2008:
Automatic deductions are convenient but I try to avoid them. I still try to pay most stuff online, but having to physically press the Send button to pay the telephone bill always makes me consider whether I could get by without the landline. If it was on autopay, I\’d never think about it.
I also whacked on my airline affinity credit card annual fee. I was paying $75 a year for the privilege, and I do use the miles every 18 months or so. But the miles requirement is going up so I called to cancel my card. Since I was a long time customer, the bank waived my fee this year.
I\’ll probably still cancel that card next year, since I have a couple of other cards that charge no annual fee. One of those cards is a cash back one, so that\’ll help cover the planes tickets that I will have to buy.
Canceling credit cards can whack your credit rating, so think that through before you cancel all your cards that charge you an annual fee.